Loonakids: Search for SpockNOT!
by BatmanLoonaticsFan96
Summary: When the gang left one of their own for dead so to speak, things got messed up...and now they have a chance to fix it all by going into battle to get that old friend back... Sequel to "Acmegeddon, Take 2"
1. Chapter 1

Loonakids: Search for Spock—NOT!

OK, I hope this one turns out better then that last one. I put all that thought into it and ended up with writer's block and then I finally get it flowing and can't write it out like I want it and have to cut it short! Anyway...just a recap:

Tech is alone on a meteor and sets off a bomb to destroy the meteor, killing himself in the process.

And that's about it. Yeah, if only Kelly had been able to stop him, right? Well, looks like she's about to get another chance to...

Chapter 1

A youngish female coyote was sitting in a chair next to a crib in a nursery. She gazed down at her 3 children, who were all asleep.

The door opened to reveal another female coyote, who seemed about half her age. "Hey, Mom."

"Hey, Sarah."

Sarah came into the room and closed the door. "It's been 2 months."

"I don't want to talk about this." She got up and walked over to the window.

"Mom…"

The older coyote turned to face her.

"Just say it."

It looked like she was now crying. "I miss him."

"We all do. But if you love someone, you'll let them go. And if _they_ really love _you_, they'll come back."

"Not if they're dead."

Sarah threw her hands up. "Mom, I'm not really good at this. This is the first time I've really helped someone get past their mourning. I didn't even talk to Dad when you were d—" When she saw her mom's sad look, she realized her mistake. "I'm sorry, I—"

"It's OK, Sarah, I need to get over him."

"OK, and I talked to Ryan, Michael, and Kelly and we all agree we don't want a step-father, so—"

"Not like that."

Sarah smiled.

"By the way, where is Kelly?"

"She's…somewhere."

* * *

(Hilary Duff's "Come Clean" plays in background)

Kelly was on the balcony of the tower, gazing out at the town/planet that lay in the sunshine before her. Suddenly, someone came up behind her and wrapped their arms around her waist. She smiled. "Hey, Austin."

Austin Wolfe, her grey and white wolf Vampire boyfriend, was indeed behind her. "Hey, Kelly."

_Let's go back_

_Back to the beginning_

_Back to when the earth, the sun, the stars_

_All aligned_

"It's so different without him."

"I know," said Austin, "I still can't get used to being around you without a warning glare."

Kelly giggled.

_'Cause perfect_

_Didn't feel so perfect_

_Trying to fit a square into a circle_

_Was no lie_

_I defy_

"What's going to happen if I'm in his situation in broad daylight?" Kelly asked, "You won't be able to help me."

_Let the rain fall down_

_And wake my dreams_

_Let it wash away_

_My sanity_

'_Cause I wanna feel the thunder_

_I wanna scream_

_Let the rain fall down_

_I'm coming clean_

Austin stepped away from her. He put his hand into the sunlight and it started to burn. "I promised him I'd protect you until I'm dusted. No matter what happens, you're gonna make it…even if I don't."

Kelly half-smiled and pulled his hand back.

_I'm shedding_

_Shedding every color_

_Trying to find a pigment of truth_

_Beneath my skin_

Kelly took one look back into the sunlight and then glanced down to see that she had her cross necklace around her neck. She Vamped out and clasped it tightly, producing the same burning effects. "And the same will go to you, dead or not." She turned back.

'_Cause different_

_Doesn't feel so different_

_And going out is better than always staying in_

_Feel the wind_

Kelly and Austin gazed at each other until he finally clasped his hand in hers.

"We better go back in the building," said Kelly, "Mom's probably freaking out right now."

"I wouldn't be surprised," Austin said, "Considering how uptight she is lately."

"She's not uptight, she's just…easily upset because she's very…emotionally unwound. OK, she's uptight!"

"And you caught it."

Kelly gave him a look, crossing her arms.

"I know, I'll back off."

_Let the rain fall down_

_And wake my dreams_

_Let it wash away_

_My sanity_

'_Cause I wanna feel the thunder_

_I wanna scream_

_Let the rain fall down_

_I'm coming clean_

Before Austin could walk too far away, Kelly grabbed his arm and pulled him into a kiss.

_Let the rain fall_

The 2 parted.

_Let the rain fall_

"Still waiting for the warning glare," said Austin.

Kelly giggled.

_I'm coming clean_

The 2 walked over to the door that led back inside. Austin reached for the doorknob, but Kelly put her hand on it first and kissed him again.

"Seriously, that's getting kind of old," said Austin when they parted.

"Don't make me slap you," Kelly responded as she opened the door and led him back inside.

_Let the rain fall down_

_And wake my dreams_

_Let it wash away_

_My sanity_

'_Cause I wanna feel the thunder_

_I wanna scream_

_Let the rain fall down_

_I'm coming clean_

_I'm coming clean_

_I'm coming clean_

Kelly took one last look at the sky. She could clearly see the spot in the sky where her father had died. Finally, she went back inside and closed the door behind her.

_Let's go back_

_Back to the beginning... _


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Kelly tossed and turned in her bed that night. Austin had gone back to the abandoned apartment where he was living and she was now alone and asleep in her bed, struggling with her newest dream vision:

_She was walking through a dark forest. She looked around a tree to see where she was, but all she could see was more trees and complete darkness. Suddenly, a light shone and disappeared to reveal her dad standing before her. "Dad?"_

"_Kelly…"_

_Kelly raced at him but found herself going right through him. "Let me guess: one of the perks of being the new Ghost Whisperer is getting to see dead people in your dreams."_

"_I'm not dead."_

_Kelly was shocked. She swiftly turned back to face him. "What? Please tell me this is a vision and not my brain going all kooky?"_

"_I don't think I'm the right person to tell you that, what with the being a Ghost on another planet."_

"_You're a what?"_

"_It's kind of a long story. But the real problem you need to worry about is…there's something coming. And if you don't find me soon, it's going to try and destroy Acmetropolis."_

"_What? How does that—What's going on? I'm getting kind of confused."_

"_I'd be surprised if you weren't. Just don't tell your brothers about this…or Sarah…or your mom, oh, especially not Sophie. Just tell Danni that there's something coming and you need to find Meridian right away."_

"_You expect us to go to Meridian after we almost got killed there?"_

"_Hey, the guy's dead!"_

_Kelly gave her father a look._

_Tech groaned. "Just do it." He disappeared._

_Just then, Kelly heard some whispers coming out of nowhere as the forest faded into a dark fog. "Oh no, not again. Not now!"_

"_Daughter and father,_

_A bond not to break,_

_One loses the other_

_In a battle in space._

_Losing all direction,_

_Lost without hope,_

_Putting her trust_

_In a Vampire to cope._

_The Whisperer struggles,_

_Lonely and unheard,_

_Never really knowing,_

_What will be her last word."_

Kelly quickly woke up. "Don't let their words get to you, Kelly," she told herself as soon as she saw the room was empty, "Don't listen. Now, were the Whisperers tricking me again…or did I really just see my father?"

_On planet Meridian…_

Tech pulled his hand out of a lake and his eyes slowly stopped glowing green. "OK, I think I got to her before the Whisperers could jump in. Maybe Danni will realize it's me and they'll come back for me. I mean, they're my family, they can't leave me here…can they? Well, even if they wanted to, they'd have to come here to get rid of Valentina." Just then, a bird flew at him. He saw it coming but made no reaction. The Phoenix-like creature flew right through him. He looked at his hands and saw them flickering as if he were a hologram. He sighed. "They better get here soon before my powers start fading and can't hold me up anymore…and I disappear…"

_Back on Acmetropolis…_

Kelly was the last one up. As soon as she got into the living room, she grabbed Daniella and pulled her into the hall.

Daniella sighed as Kelly stopped pulling her. "Dream-vision? Whisperers?"

"Both."

Daniella looked at her. "In the same night? Are you sure you don't wanna talk to your mom about this?"

"No! I…It's about Dad."

Daniella stared at her.

_Back on Meridian…_

In a dark area of a forest pretty much on the other side of the planet from Tech, someone was on their knees on the forest floor. The person sighed and rested their hands on their knees. "I've been waiting here…far too long…" The voice was frail and weak, as if they'd been elderly for decades. "As soon as the Elders banished me…they died…they should've let me stay…I tried to warn them…I could've helped them…this world is dying out…along with everything on it…pretty soon…there will be nothing more for to feed upon…" They grabbed a thorny tree branch and squeezed it, puncturing their hand and making blood drip out. "I must break out of here…before I die…" A frog came hopping up. It was a fairly tiny one, very young. The person let go of the branch and held out their clean hand. "Come here, little one…" The frog hopped forward. "Yes…" A few more hops… The person grabbed it and squeezed it, dropping its blood on their injured hand. Finally, the person dropped the frog's dead body on the ground. They sighed, their voice considerably younger (still old, but younger). "I have been hidden here far too long. I must leave this planet. But how?" A wind blew and the trees rattled. "Life on the planet? Human life? Impossible! When the Elders left, they took everyone—" The trees shook again. "What? Magic? Magic beings are immortal. I'd need their blood to survive. Where are they?"

_Back on Acmetropolis…_

Daniella finished listening to Kelly's story. "Wow."

Kelly nodded. "There's gotta be a message to this, right? I mean, are the Whisperers trying to say something or what?"

"Well, the Whisperers' talk is the same as always, from what I've heard from you and your parents, but the rest of it seems a bit out of whack. The Whisperers have never sent images before. There must be something up with this…"

"Like what? Was it a dream-vision or a real dream?"

"That's not easy to figure out…but either way, your subconscious—or your powers—is telling you something."

"What? What am I telling myself?"

Daniella half-smiled and shrugged. "Well, this is pretty sketchy translation, but…either you're really missing your Dad even though you know he's really gone and your subconscious is telling you to get over him…or your powers are kicking in over that and telling you the truth—or at least what you're hoping is the truth: that he never left at all. And judging by the way your powers work, I'd say the last answer is the most likely."


	3. Chapter 3

OK, I feel compelled to disclose a few problems with my previous story "Unhappy Birthday": 1) I said that season 3 of Loonakids would have 4 stories but I now have 6 planned; and 2) when I wrote out the lyrics of "Little Bit Longer", I said that the line in the chorus was "every time you smile a little, I feel close" but I recently figured out that it's really "every time you smile or laugh, you glow", so I have to retract that. And then there's a problem with "Undead Mayhem": This scene...

Ace: Wasn't your family there for you when you were changed?

Austin: Actually, I got the full hit so they thought I died. When they found out I had turned into a Vampire, they shunned me from their lives and didn't invite me in. By the time they even considered it, they were dying. Plus, I lost my soul when I went through my change so I would have killed them if they did. I'm glad they left me alone.

Yeah, it's actually supposed to go like this:

Sarah: Wasn't your family there for you when you were turned?

Austin: Sarah, when I tell you this, I want you to stay calm and remember that I wasn't me, I was a filthy, soulless killer demon...I ate them.

Sarah: ...Oh...

So I also have to retract that. Now, on with the story!

Oh, and Luna246, I read your review. Obviously, you didn't read closely enough in the first few stories or just plain didn't read the Loonatics Enchanted Trilogy at all, in which case, you'd know that the triplets' father was human but their mother was a coyote, making Sophie a coyote while Daniella and Wendy are human. NOW, on with the story.

Chapter 3

Kelly was out on the roof again.

Austin came up behind her and sat down on a box. "Penny for your thoughts?"

Kelly smiled. "My dad's alive."

Austin looked at her. After a few seconds, he sighed and got up. "Listen, I know the past 2 months have been hard on you, I know you 2 were close…but we all saw—"

"I saw him last night."

"In a dream?"

"Vision dream. I told Daniella about it and she agrees that he may very well still be out there. There's not a doubt in my mind that he tried to contact me through my powers last night and that he's still alive."

"Then where he is he?"

"Now, see, that part is the hard part." She faced him. "If he really is out there—and I use the term 'if' loosely—then he's on planet Meridian."

"Home of the freak who poisoned the planet to get the Loonakids on his planet so that he could take your power?"

"That plan failed. The guy's dead now. I don't care if there's someone still there, I just know that my dad is there and alive and waiting for me to bring him home and I'm gonna do it. Besides, there's something up there anyway, so we'd all have to go just to save the world."

"He explicitly said there was something up there?"

"Yeah, but—"

"Don't you get it? There's probably someone else who knows about you, someone who wants you dead. So they're luring you to Meridian with a fake vision of Tech so you'll go after him and get yourself killed. I'm not letting that happen to you."

She stared him down. "I don't care. There's a chance that you're wrong, you know. I'm not saying you are, but there's a chance that my father is out there dying and I can't take that risk."

"There's also a chance that he's not and that you're about to deliberately go on a suicide mission and I'll lose you, and I can't take that risk."

Kelly sighed and pushed herself closer to him. "I love you, OK?" He stared at her. "But if my father is out there, he's trying to find me. And even if it isn't him, it's a threat to all of us and not just me so I'd have to go up there anyway to fight it. One way or another, I'm going back to Meridian. And nothing you can say or do is gonna stop me." With that, she walked back into the tower.

_2 hours later…_

The gang was done setting up the ship to fly to Meridian.

"I can't believe it," said Ryan, sitting on top of the ship, "After 2 months, Kelly finally gets a vision saying Dad's alive?"

"Hey," said Kelly, "Have I ever been wrong before?"

"Well…"

"Don't answer that." She walked off to get the bags while Ryan got off the ship. She picked up a bag, then another, then another…and she toppled over. "Oh, great." She started picking them up. Then her hand met another… She looked at Austin.

"I…just thought I'd help."

She smiled. "You're coming with us, aren't you?"

"I promised your dad I'd protect you. If you're in danger, I'm going."

She smiled again, wider. "And then there's the fact that you promised me you'd protect Gabby and that she's not going."

"Can't Archer watch her?"

"Are we talking about the same Archer?"

"Point taken."

"We're lucky time passes differently on Meridian. We'll be able to leave the kids here with a nanny spell."

"We still have to worry about Archer."

"Right." Kelly got up from the floor and opened a door. "Archer! You're coming with us!"

"Oh boy!" The family beagle, Archer raced in. "Yeah, I'm going to Median with you guys!"

"Meridian."

"Whatever!" Archer raced into the ship with Ryan.

Kelly looked back at Austin. "In case one of us doesn't come back…"

"I'm with you there."

They put their arms around each other and leaned in…

Ryan honked the horn on the ship.

Kelly and Austin separated and walked off to get in the ship and leave.

_Meanwhile…_

_On Meridian…_

The old lady was still in the shadows in the forest, now asleep…and dreaming…

_In a crystal palace on an older planet Meridian—a beautiful, friendly land at the time—there lived the royal family: the king, queen, and 2 princesses. They were a happy family, but they had their flaws._

_The king was the head of the house and the leader of the land. He had his sparkling blue eyes and soft brown hair. He was a very regal, very powerful leader._

_The queen was a beautiful bride for the king. She had long brown hair and mesmerizing baby blue eyes. She always wore the finest dresses and justly ruled the kingdom with her husband._

_Their eldest daughter was Valentina. She had semi-long brunette hair and bright green eyes (genetics worked differently for Meridians). She was a fair ruler and quite beautiful, a catch for all the suitors._

_Their youngest daughter was Elena. She had semi-long blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She gentle and kind with her people and an amazing and graceful ruler. She was even prettier than her beautiful sister and was more sought-after by the suitors despite her young age._

_Valentina and Elena were good friends as sisters. One night, they were in their beds in their shared rooms._

_Valentina sat down on Elena's bed and handed her a pink chain with a green sapphire jewel. "I want you to have this."_

_"Your favorite necklace?"_

_"I enchanted it. It's yours now."_

_Elena put it on and smiled. "I love it."_

_Valentina smiled._

_Elena took off the necklace and put it on her bedside table. "We'd better get some sleep."_

_Valentina got in her bed and slowly drifted off…_

_2 years later, an older Valentina and older Elena were fighting in the garden._

_"You don't want to do this, Valentina," Elena said._

_Valentina knocked her back and took out a dagger. "Don't try that on me. You took my boyfriend, took my kingdom, but you didn't take my power."_

_Elena grabbed her sister's wrist with her feet and twisted it to knock the dagger from her grasp and across the gardens._

_The 2 sisters wrestled until they were at the edge of the mini-forest outside the gardens…and on a cliff over the seas._

_Elena looked at the waters below and then at Valentina._

_Valentina smiled, mischievously. She started to fight her sister over the cliff…but was interrupted by a surge of almost magic-like power._

_An Elf-like lady stood there in a cloak. "Princess Valentina…you are hereby under arrest."_

_Valentina looked at Elena…_

_2 weeks later, Valentina was tied to a wall in the Elders' courtroom._

_The woman who'd arrested her was pacing in front of her. "…I saw it with my own eyes, Princess Valentina attacked her own sister." She turned around to face Valentina. "The charge has been stated. Would you like to say something?"_

_"Yeah, but I'm in enough trouble already."_

_She glared at her. "Fine. Don't speak up for yourself."_

_"I have nothing to defend. The throne is mine and I'm not gonna let my own sister stand in my way like that…even if I have to kill her."_

_The woman faced the rest of the courtroom. "I take that as a confession. How do the rest of the Elders feel?"_

_Pretty much the whole of the "jury" raised their hands._

_"Then I hereby sentence Princess Valentina to be stripped of her royal status and banished."_

_Valentina glared at her…_

The old woman woke up.

But the story kept going beyond that:

After Valentina had left the courtroom, Elena had approached the Elder that had just banished her sister. "And what becomes of me? You know she won't heed her sentence."

"I am aware. And the first thing she'll do under her new laws of life will be to come after you."

"So what do I do? I have the royal jewel and her true love, the 2 targets she strives for that resulted in this attack. I'm what both targets have in common. Which means this wasn't the end of her assault."

"Then you are not safe here."

"Where else is there I can live?"

The Elder lady considered this… "There is one place."

Elena stared at her.

And it was a good thing Valentina had been banished to the Dark Forests and Elena taken from the planet. For less than a year later, their world was caught in a great battle that ultimately destroyed them and left only 3 survivors…

_3 hours later…_

An alarm started going off on the gang's ship.

"What's going on?" Austin asked.

"One of the engines went out again," said Ryan, "We're entering Meridian's atmosphere too fast. We're gonna crash!"

"Everyone hold onto something!" Ace cried.

Everyone obeyed. The ship "landed" in the middle of a forest. The crash caused a window to cave in, too.

Austin quickly noticed this. "Ah! Quick! The daylight!" He and the others instantly rushed to get him out of the way.

Suddenly, Kelly stopped them. "HOLD IT!"

Austin stopped moving…and noticed that he'd been standing in broad sunlight during that whole scramble with no reaction. "What…" He started looking around to see if he was mistaken and that there was just a different reaction to his Vampire system in this planet's atmosphere…well, apparently, that different reaction was no reaction at all. "OK, why am I not bursting into flames?"

"Guess the sun doesn't affect Vamps here," said Wendy.

"Uh, suns." Kelly pointed out the 2 suns in the sky. "And 3 moons."

"Huh," said Daniella, "I guess one's counteracting the other."

"Off that topic," said Lexi, "Maybe we should be disguising the ship so that no one suspects something's up."

"Right." Austin nodded. "We should probably have Slam push it into that bush and then we can cover it with some old tree parts and Ryan can fix it later. Now where can we find some branches? Oh, look, there's some over there in that patch of sun. I'll get them." He raced over there.

"He's really milking this, isn't he?" asked Kelly.

"Wouldn't you?" asked Daniella, "He's not been able to go into sunlight for the past 200 years."

"Point taken."

"Let's just start looking for Tech," said Sophie, "Or whatever else is here."

The gang quickly hid the ship, making sure it was still in a place where they could find it, and set out to find their missing family member…or the bad guy.

Eventually, they were walking through a very dark forest.

"Are you sure we're going the right way?" asked Wendy, "'Cause it seems like we passed that tree a minute ago."

"All these trees look the same, Wend," said Lucy.

"So you see my point."

"Relax," said Daniella, "I've been following the sun."

"Which one?"

Daniella looked at her.

"There's 2! Face it, we're lost!"

"We are not lost! I know just where I'm going!"

"And where is that?"

Daniella started to respond…then realized she had no answer.

Wendy looked at her. "I'm waiting."

Daniella hesitated. "Mm…Kelly! You guys have been here before, why don't you tell us where to look?"

Kelly looked at her. "We spent a lot of our time on this planet trapped in that guy's lair, so…"

"Oh."

Kelly nodded.

"Follow the vibes?"

Kelly sighed. "Fine." She closed her eyes and mixed her Witch's sense with her psychic vibes. "OK, I'm picking up some major power deep in the woods, but…"

Something was watching them behind a tree, its vision of the scene tinted blood red as it flicked its forked tongue out at them.

"…I can't get anything. There's some power interfering…" Her eyes snapped open. "My Ghost Whisperer side is kicking in. There's something undead nearby."

The snake-like creature hid behind the tree. _Witches…_ It slithered off rapidly before they could sense it nearby.

Lexi whirled around to look at the tree, having heard the slither and hiss.

Kelly looked at her. "I heard it, too. …What'd we hear?"

Austin looked around the tree. "There's nothing there. It must be gone."

Kelly shook her head. "I'm still getting that interference. I thought this planet didn't have Ghosts, but my undead powers are still kicking in."

"You sure you're not just smelling blood?" Austin asked.

"Positive."

"'Cause I am."

Kelly looked at him.

Austin sniffed a few times and looked around. He didn't see anything bleeding.

The snake creature was hiding behind a tree even further back into the darkest parts of the woods, feeding off a woodland creature (well, it was a woodland creature of that planet).

"Are you sure you're not smelling us?" asked Duck, "'Cause I'm not about to let you eat me."

"No, it's not human," Austin corrected.

"OK, and you're still smelling it? That's disturbing."

"Hey, I'm trying to help here. Could you not be such a jerk about it?"

"Him not be a jerk?" asked Sarah, "Are we talking about the same Duck?"

"Hey!" Duck snapped, "I am older than you are. Are you not supposed to respect me for that?"

"Oh, trust me, she doesn't need to," said Daniella.

The gang started to get into a fight and accidentally knocked one another down a hill, landing in a heap on the forest floor.

Sophie groaned and slowly started to work her way up. She noticed that someone was holding their hand out for her and took it, letting it help her up. "Thanks, I—" She stopped when she looked at him.

It was Tech.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"Tech?" Sophie found herself asking, "Is that really you?"

Daniella pulled her sister back. "Kelly said her undead senses were acting out. If that's really a Ghost, it's possible that this planet's Ghost rules allow them to change into the form of another dead being."

"Daniella, you're the one that was always telling everyone that changeling Ghosts don't exist."

"That was before we came here and Austin was able to walk in broad sunlight."

"Point taken."

Tech turned her to face him. "So, it's me."

"Prove it."

Tech half-smiled and took off the locket.

She took it. It was gold with a heart-shaped charm that had "love" written in silver letters. She opened the charm and revealed a picture of her and her family when she was little on one side and a picture of her and Tech when she was pregnant with Kelly, Ryan, Sarah, and Michael on the other side.

"You gave it to me when you were pregnant, we'd been married for 2 months."

She looked at him.

"Your mother had given it to you when you were little and told you that she'd always be with you no matter what."

"And then I lost her…"

"The day after we got engaged. She was murdered along with your dad…and you."

"And yet I'm still alive."

"Because you thought you were responsible for their deaths, died with a guilty conscience, and became the Listener."

"And I met you…"

"…with amnesia. You'd just come from Anasala to Acmetropolis to save it from an evil Warlock whose sister turned out to be your murderer…twice."

She looked at him. "One last question: what was our promise _after_ we got married, right before we started hearing the Whisperers' voices?"

He half-smiled again. "That we'd never keep secrets from each other…ever again."

She smiled.

"And I took that to heart."

She smiled and touched him. "It's really you." She looked at him closer…and slapped him.

He looked at her. "Ow! What was that for?"

"What do you think that was for? You had me worried sick for 2 months thinking you were dead!"

"Hey! Kelly was about to die! I was just trying to—"

Sophie interrupted by kissing him.

"Oh, get a room!" Ryan snapped.

His parents smiled at him.

"And that?" Tech asked his wife.

Sophie smiled at him. "For coming back."

Tech smiled.

Kelly smiled. "OK, we should probably go home before there turns out to be another bad guy here…"

"Yeah, I like that idea." Wendy got up from the ground. "Besides, we left the kids alone and I'm not sure how much longer I can hold up that stinking nanny spell."

The gang—now reunited—raced back to the ship. Luckily, it was easier to find that than their way through the forest. Unluckily…they had a stowaway: the snake creature that Austin had smelled the blood on.

As the gang took off, they started catching up.

"I didn't miss anything, right?" asked Tech.

"Pretty boring without you, really," said Kelly, smiling at him, as happy as she could possibly be, "Except for the whole me and mom and possibly Sarah crying our eyes out part. How about you?"

"I exploded. How do you think I've been?"

"Wait, you were really dead?" Kelly looked at him. "In my dream-vision, you said hadn't died."

"No, I said I wasn't dead. I didn't say I hadn't died."

"Wait, that was really you?" asked Daniella, quite shocked, "I thought it was just her powers acting up."

"How is it possible he could've just contacted her in her sleep?" asked Wendy, "Are you sure you came back right?"

Tech glared at her. "Yes, but in the 2 months I was stuck there, I picked some things up. And there's some pool or something there that let's you contact psychics in their dreams."

Wendy processed this. "Oh."

While the gang exchanged their heartfelt reunions and blah, blah, blah, the snake was in the cargo hold on the ceiling of the ship. It looked over the edge and down at them. It hissed almost silently and hid again.

Wanna know the weird thing? Neither Lexi nor Austin heard the hiss even though it was still audible…

_Back on Acmetropolis…_

A couple guys walked by an old building.

"I'm telling you, man," said one guy, "There is no way it's gonna rain tonight."

Ironically, it was at that exact moment that thunder rumbled, lightning flashed, and raindrops poured on them.

"You were saying?" the second guy said.

"Let's just go home." With that, the first started to leave.

The second guy got stalled. He heard a voice coming from the old building…

"_ Ah-ah-ah…ah-ah-ah…ah-ah-ah…ah-ah-ah…_"

Subconsciously, he stopped walking and his feet began to move him towards the building…

"_…ah-ah-ah…ah-ah-ah…ah-ah-ah! _"

Suddenly, something grabbed him. Thunder drowned out his scream as his neck was broken. A white light flashed as his soul was taken from his body and transported somewhere else…

Meanwhile, the first guy realized that his buddy wasn't following him. "Hey, where'd you go?" He turned around and saw no one. He figured his buddy must have gotten sidetracked and followed him into the old building.

Only to meet the same fate.

After both men were dead, out walked a beautiful blonde young woman. She sighed and opened her blue eyes to reveal them briefly flashing an awful shade of green. "2 down…" She looked at the sky and the rain falling around her began to fall in every direction but at her. "…98 to go." With that, she walked off, the pattern of rainfall following her. As she walked off, she rubbed her head. She was obviously weak. "Just a formality. After 50…I can only go up."

_Back at the tower…_

_A few hours later…_

The gang had finally landed and they were now unloading everything.

While they did so, Kelly was alone with Tech on the dock. "You know…I really missed you."

Tech smiled. "No kidding."

Kelly smiled in return. "It's been too long without you. And too _with _Archer and Duck and Jack _without you_."

Tech snickered. "No arguing with that."

Kelly giggled. "But now you're finally back…after everything we went through…oh!" She reached out to hug him…and fell forward through him. She caught herself and realized in the fleet of the moment what was going on.

"Kelly—" Tech started.

"AAHH! AAHH! YOU'RE A GHOST! YOU'RE A GHOST!"

"Wait—"

Kelly ran right through him and down the stairs as fast as possible.

Tech groaned. "Oh, I'm really in for it now." He ran through the wall and down after his daughter.

Kelly got downstairs in time to corner everyone else. "Dad's a Ghost! Dad's a Ghost!"

"Whoa, Kelly—" Sophie started.

That's when Tech made it down there. "I can explain!"

"Yeah, explain the fact that you're a half-alive space roach!"

Sarah scoffed. "That's ridiculous!" She headed off her sister and started backing up, apparently not noticing that she was backing up into Tech. "If he were a Ghost, would I be able to see—" Then she backed right through Tech and fell on the floor. "Oh, my."

"What…" Sophie walked up to her husband and put her hand through his stomach. She pulled it out and put it in again.

She repeated this about 10 times, each time getting faster, before Tech finally backed away. "Stop it! That tickles!"

Austin walked up to Tech and put his hand through him. "OK, that's creepy."

Tech got away from him, too.

"Hold on a minute," said Lexi, walking up to him, "We know you're the real Tech…we know you're not dead…and yet, we know you're a Ghost."

"I'm not a Ghost!" said Tech, "When I came back on Meridian and not Acmetropolis, my powers malfunctioned according to the atmospheric condition and I came back incorporeal."

Sophie considered this, slightly confused. "Oh. Well, that's not good."

While this conversation kept going, no one noticed the snake coming down the stairs and starting to silently slither out of the tower.

"'Atmospheric conditions' like the ones that let Austin walk around in sunlight?" asked Daniella.

"Exactly," said Tech.

"I still think we should've stuck around a little longer—" Austin started.

"Oh, you were milking it enough when we were hiding the ship," Nadine said.

The door opened for the snake and the snake slithered out, the door closing behind it.

Everyone heard the door opening and closing so they looked around. They hadn't let anyone into the building to get out (or at least they thought so) and there was no one in sight inside.

"Huh," said Nadine, returning to the conversation.

Kelly suddenly twitched, her eyes just briefly flashing silver.

Daniella noticed this first. "Are you OK?"

"Yeah, it's just a vibe," Kelly said, rubbing her head a little.

"Something wrong?"

Kelly closed her eyes and went with it, letting her Witch's sense mix in. Suddenly, her eyes snapped open. She straightened up entirely and let her hand fall from her head. "Horribly wrong."

_Down the street…_

The snake slithered into a house. As it entered, its shadow could be seen on the wall morphing into that of an elderly woman. The elderly woman from the Meridian forest.

As this happened, 6 young men walked by.

The old lady peered around the doorway. "Hello, boys."

The boys looked at her.

"Won't you come in?"

One of the boys scoffed. "Yeah. Won't I." He started to walk off.

One of the other boys stopped him. "Come on, man. She's old, she's losing her mind."

The boy sighed. "Fine."

With that said, the 6 boys walked into the old house.

The old lady closed the door behind them. And locked it.

"Hey…why'd you lock the door? Whoa. Hey. What's happening? No! NO!"

As the events of this attack took place, blood spattered on the windowpane. When the screaming finally stopped, the old woman walked up to the window and absorbed some of the blood with her own blood-stained hand to reveal that she was now not in her late 50's but her late 30's. She looked at the bodies on the floor of the house and smiled. They weren't young men, they were old ones. "It's good to be back." She looked at her hand to find the blood seeping into her newly-whole skin. She smiled again.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The gang walked into a building.

"This place looks fine to me," said Wendy.

"Well, it doesn't feel right to me," said Kelly.

Lucy checked the room in front of them and the poster on the door. "Maybe that's because they're having a vegetarian's concert in there and no one's there."

"Well, that'll be a problem," said Kelly, "How are we supposed to search this place with 101 Vegetarians about ready to knock the place down?"

Rev sped around the floor. "Well-I-don't-see-any-problem-here-nothing-showing-on-my-radar-then-again-it-doesn't-show-dead-things-or-charmed-places-so-we-could-be-dealing-with-a-magic-thing-or-a-Vamps'-nest-but-we-really-should-start-searching." With that said, he stopped running once he reached Daniella.

Kelly sighed. "OK, there's 9 floors here. So if Nadine, Lucy, Sarah, Ryan, and Jack can search the 5th floor, which is the largest from what I've seen, then the other Loonakids with Slam and Austin and Dad can search above that and the rest of you can search below it while I stall the veg-heads."

"Sounds good," said Sarah, "But, uh, word of advice: don't call them 'veg-heads.'"

Kelly nodded and walked off.

_A few minutes later…_

Sarah looked through a room. "Nothing here." She went back into the hall and closed the door. She looked down the hall. The others hadn't gotten to her sector yet. She sighed and walked into the next room…to find the "old lady" in the room, now in snake form, jumping with cut scales into the body of one of the—as Kelly called them—veg-heads. Sarah gasped and started to leave, but her panic wouldn't let her open the door correctly. Until she calmed down, all she could do was…well, panic some more. She would've screamed or sung and ran but she didn't know what this thing was and therefore didn't know how her powers would affect it.

Finally, the snake slithered out of the dead body of the veg-head and turned back into human formed to reveal that she was now looking about 24. Before going into the corner to grab the last cowering teen, she noticed Sarah standing at the door. When she sensed what she was, she smiled. "Hey there. Name's Valentina. AKA, 'I'm gonna eat you about now.'"

Sarah was now panicking even more.

Meanwhile, Kelly had cast a couple spells and was now coming onto the stage in front of the complaining veg-heads. She sat down on a stool, wearing a flowing dress, a blonde wig, and clearly fake glasses. She strummed the guitar she was holding. "Hello. I am Sunshine."

Everyone in the audience exchanged looks.

"I'm the opening act." Kelly had panicked, she couldn't come up with any better distraction. "This first number is called the _Ballad of the Salad_." She smiled at her rhyming pun. Then stopped when she realized that no one else got it. She quickly just started playing. "_ Ever since the day I was born, I've been in love with sweet yellow corn._" Still nothing. "_I love it on the nibblet and on the cob, love it with butter even a glob._" Even more nothing. An even worse nothing. She sighed and just kept going.

Then everyone else besides Sarah came up and saw her panic.

"_And even in my teeth, it gets a sticking…oh, I love it best…_"

"Oh no," said Wendy, seeing what was coming next without needing her Witch's sense.

"_…in my Mom's…_"

"We might wanna hide," Wendy said, gesturing to the others to get behind the curtain they were by in order to get away from the impending tomato bombard.

"_…deep-fried chicken. Chicken! Oh, chicken! _"

"BOO!"

Kelly instantly blocked herself with her guitar, getting off the stool and hiding behind it as well. "Did-Did I say 'chicken'? I meant…celery!"

Michael smacked his forehead.

"My mom's…deep-fried…celery."

Lucky for her, that's when the real band came out. "We'll take it from here."

"OK." Kelly instantly raced over to her family. "Man, I hate playing these jigged-up vegetarian towns."

Wendy looked at her. "I bet the other musicians say the same thing with 'Vampire' as the v word."

Lucy sighed. "Look, when we were clearing out to come help you, we lost Sarah. We think that your vibe was right and that the thing you were sensing got to her. We need to find her."

"Right," said Kelly, "Let's get going."

"Uh…Kelly…" Sophie started.

"What?" Kelly then realized she was still in disguise. "Oh. Right. Duh." She zapped herself and was back in uniform. Then she realized that she still had her guitar and quickly zapped it back to her secret music room. "Let's go. I'll lead the way." She started to do just that.

"Uh, hold up, sister!" Benny called after her, "I'm the leader here! Witch/psychic or not, _I'm_ gonna be the one to—ooh, carrots!" He dove for the deli platter and picked up all the carrot sticks he could. Then Nadine came up and pulled him off.

Valentina still had Sarah pretty much locked in the room. "I gotta tell you. It's good to be back in my original form. Man, living off those stupid forest rats for decades was practically killing me! Almost literally! Then who should come along but some visitors from another planet, conveniently in a ship big enough to hold all of them _and_ me."

Sarah then realized, slowly inching from the door to the corner, what was going on. "You stowed away on our ship."

"Yup. Glad I did, too. You may have had a chance of beating me in that state there but now I'm back, baby! And no one's stopping me now!" She walked over to the corner where the vegetarian girl was cowering in fear. "Man, it's good to be able to actually touch…to feel…" After she said that, she, in one swift motion, grabbed the girl and snapped her neck. "…to kill."

Sarah stared, wide-eyed, at this.

Valentina squeezed her own hand with razor-sharp nails until she drew blood and then did the same to the girl's side. She pressed the cuts together. As the blood mixed, the girl's body became older and Valentina got younger. Like more to Sarah's age than 25. Valentina looked at Sarah. "But I feel you. I felt you ever since I saw you. All of you. Together. Immortal."

Sarah then got where she was going. Immortals didn't age like normal people (such as the 6 young men from earlier that morning and the 2 vegetarians killed just now). Therefore, they wouldn't age because of Valentina's apparent age-sucking powers. Instead, said immortals would just get weaker. I.e., Valentina would get their power and they wouldn't be able to claim it in return. If Valentina were able to capture all the immortal Loonakids and/or the triplets, there was a lifetime-full of power that would keep them from killing her. "Uh…about that…"

"Don't try to talk your way out of this one, kiddo," Valentina said, walking closer to her, "I got you cornered." She rapidly went into snake motion and slithered around Sarah until she was being constricted. This happened in 0.62 seconds. Valentina then turned back to human form, her arms now tightly wrapped around Sarah to where there was no escape. "You're mine now." She swiped at Sarah's arm with one hand, making Sarah whimper and wince in pain. She moved her cut hand towards Sarah's injury…

The gang ran through the hall outside.

Finally, when they came to the door to the room Sarah was in, Lexi stopped them. "Guys! I hear something. It sounds like Sarah. And she's not alone. And her heartbeat is nowhere near slow."

"She's scared, I can feel it," Kelly said.

Ryan tried to open the door. "It won't budge. What do we do?"

Kelly scoffed. "This!" She Vamped, summoned all her strength, and kicked the door down.

Ryan blinked. "What princess school did you go to?"

Kelly smiled at him. "Vampire one." Without forgetting to turn herself back to normal, she stormed into the room to find Valentina holding onto Sarah. The door falling down had scared Valentina enough to let go of her hold on Sarah, but she wasn't letting Sarah go anywhere. "Let go of my sister."

Sarah groaned. "Did you have to mention we're sisters?"

Valentina instantly threw Sarah across the room. "Oh, look, if it ain't the immortal troopers coming to save Jar-Jar Binks."

Sarah got up from the floor, now in her uniform and her eyes glowing blue. "You know, I always thought of myself more as Queen Amidala."

Valentina looked at her, amazed that she'd recovered from that attack so fast.

Sarah screamed at her, knocking her back with such force that she broke the wall almost enough to fall in the hall (no rhyme intended).

Valentina dug herself out of the wall by going into snake form and slithering out.

Ace pulled out the Guardian Strike Sword and let Kelly snatch it, starting to attack the snake.

But the snake was ready for that and jumped onto the sword, wrapping itself around the blade. The snake turned back into Valentina, who planted her feet firmly on the floor and tossed the Sword across the room. She smiled at Kelly despite her broken skin on her stomach, arms, and legs and the 2 started fighting hand-to-hand.

_Meanwhile…_

The young blonde woman walked into a bank. It was almost closing time so no one was there. She walked up to the only available teller. "Excuse me, I'd like to make a withdrawal."

The guy looked at her. "I've never seen you here before. I'll need some ID."

She glared at him. "_ Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh…_"

Suddenly, his eyes glazed over and he was handing her money absentmindedly. Or rather no-mindedly.

"_…ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh…_" She smiled as she saw her plan coming together. She was controlling minds now. Soon, she could control anything. She moved her hand closer to the teller… "_…ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh…_" She touched his face. "_…ooh-ooh-ooh…! _" She grabbed his neck with her free hand and tugged, dropping his dead body on the floor. She took the money and examined it. "This oughtta do for now. Thanks!" She started to walk off. As she did, she noticed a security camera. She quickly zapped it and it exploded. She weakly grabbed her head as she had done before. "No matter. My powers are getting stronger already. All I need is 97 more souls." She looked at the money in her hands. "And I know just how to get them."

_Back with the gang…_

Kelly was thrown into the wall.

Valentina smirked. "Do you really think you can fight me?" Without turning around, she grabbed onto Sarah by the throat. "I don't think so." She whirled around to punch Sarah in the face. She turned back into a snake—

Benny, without thinking, jumped the snake and pressed his foot on its tail, grabbing it by the neck.

"Benny, don't—!" Sarah cried.

Too late. The snake bit his wrist.

Benny cried out and pulled away, grasping his bleeding wrist.

Suddenly and without warning, the snake turned back into Valentina. Who quickly grabbed Benny's injured wrist with her cut hand. "Try running now."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The team was too weary from fighting to do anything to fight Valentina off of Benny now that their blood was already merging. He was doomed.

Suddenly, someone jumped through the window. She looked kind of like Valentina but she was blonde instead of brunette and had bright blue eyes in the place of green ones. She quickly took out a dagger and stabbed Valentina in the leg with it.

Valentina was forced to let go of Benny, who was thrown back into a wall where the others could easily reach him.

So they promptly did and began to inspect his wound. His wrist was practically broken and blood was pouring from it. Half of it wasn't his but the other half was clearly poisoned.

"Uh oh," Sarah said.

Valentina got up from the floor and approached the blonde girl, who bravely stood her ground. "Elena. Long time, no see. Miss me?"

"Miss you, Valentina? How could I? Why should I? _You_ never cared about _me_."

Kelly looked at them. They knew each other?

"Well then," said Valentina, "I believe a fight is in order."

"Then you got one." Quickly, Elena's foot moved to smack Valentina's side, knocking her over.

While this continued, Austin examined Benny's wrist. He sniffed the blood and knew what he had to do. He Vamped—

"What are you doing?" Kelly demanded, stopping him.

"If someone doesn't take that poisoned blood out, he's gonna get infected."

"Well, isn't that gonna turn him?"

"Not really. Half of what I'm taking is tainted or not his, therefore it wouldn't be enough to turn him in which case he would have to feed back." Without letting the conversation continue, he took Benny's injured wrist and bit into it, taking out the poison before it could really enter his bloodstream. Once it was clear, Austin stopped entirely and de-Vamped, dropping onto his hands on the floor (he was already on his knees so…).

Kelly dove for him while everyone else attended to Benny and while Elena and Valentina continued to fight. "Are you OK?"

"I'm fine."

"Because I can get you to a—"

Austin glared at her. "I said I'm fine!"

Kelly backed off.

Austin looked at the floor. That's when he caught the scent. The blood on Valentina's cut body. He started to stare at her as she fought Elena. He kept his eyes or her as his ears filled with the sound of her mocking heartbeat…

Kelly noticed his bizarre behavior. "Austin?"

Austin completely ignored her and jumped Valentina, knocking her to the ground.

"What are you doing?" Elena cried.

Valentina smiled at Austin and turned into a snake again. She slithered off and turned back into human form long enough for her to jumped through the wall, knocking Elena off his feet and Austin back into the wall.

Unfortunately, Austin was in the sunlight and he almost immediately began to fry. He instantly scrambled out of the way and into the shadows.

Elena glared at Austin, not having seen his scramble for the shadows since her eyes had been on escaping Valentina. "What's wrong with you? This wasn't your fight, it was mine! What would've happened if—" She was interrupted by Benny's groans. She looked at him and saw his broken wrist. She went over to examine it and saw the snake's bite marks…and the Vampire's. She sighed. "We've gotta get him out of here now."

_Later…_

Benny lay in a hospital bed in the tower, his wrist bandaged.

Sarah walked up to him. "Are you OK?"

Benny looked at her and then at his wrist. "Been better."

"Right."

"Just give me some time."

"For what? Before you go back into the field? It could take a few weeks before your bones go back into place."

"I'll have to be exercising it, though, right? Well, this is my punching hand!"

Sarah smiled.

Benny smiled back.

Meanwhile, Daniella and Kelly were talking in the hall outside the room (actually, they were only ones not in the med room since everybody had at least minor injuries to attend to).

"You've gotta talk to him, Kelly," Daniella said.

"He doesn't wanna talk about it."

"Kelly, Austin was just trying to save a life. And he did a good job of it, probably even saved Benny from a major alien attack on his system. But in the process, he drank human blood. After all these years, that's gotta have some effect on him."

Kelly sighed. "That's why he doesn't wanna talk about it."

Daniella nodded understandingly. "I'm just worried he'll redevelop his old ways of bloodlust."

"That's not gonna happen, Danni. He has a soul now. And we're all watching him. Especially me."

Daniella sighed. "Now switching matters to Tech…"

"I know, I know. 'There's no telling how Meridian's affected him.' 'We don't know how having an intergalactic-law-abiding Ghost is gonna affect the team.' 'It's bad enough we have Archer already.'"

Daniella smiled at the last one. "Pretty much, yeah."

"Well, what can we do about it? You've said it yourself for 5 years now: there is no magic that can bring the dead back to life."

Daniella stopped smiling. "That's not entirely true."

Kelly looked at her, confused.

"There is no magic that can cure a Vampire of his curse—especially in a case as bad as Austin. But there are certain ways that Ghosts can return to human form: taking over the body of someone who's just died, coming back as a half-Ghost, or—in a case like Tech's—finding a way to make their heart start beating again. But we've got little chance of finding a way, if there even is one, to make any of those options work on bringing Tech back completely."

Kelly stared her down. "There's something you're leaving out, isn't there? There's a way to bring back someone who's crossed over?"

Daniella hesitated but still nodded. "Yeah. Terrible ways. Awful, powerful, life-crushing ways. Spells. Spells that would kill the caster."

Kelly said no more on the subject. Obviously, that was nowhere near an option for them right now. A life for a life was no way to bring Tech back, even if it were a possibility that it could work and even keep him with them forever. Hurriedly, Kelly again switched the subject. "What about our new little guest?"

Daniella looked into the medical wing at Elena, sitting in a corner and not making contact with anyone. "We don't know anything about her, that's for sure. But obviously, she's got some sort of past with Valentina. And you know what they say 'the enemy of my enemy is no hobgoblin.'"

Kelly blinked at her. "What?"

Daniella looked at her. "What, you've never heard that one before?"

"W-What's a hobgoblin anyway?"

"The worst kind of insult you could give to anyone. Which, I think, right now, applies to Valentina."

Kelly nodded. "Good to know. Look, either way, we don't want a repeat of Tiara/Tempest."

Daniella nodded in return. "Seriously, we should've seen that one coming."

Kelly shrugged. "Well, at least this one came in without an invitation. We know she's not a Vampire."

"Actually…Valentina did stow away on our ship on our way back from Meridian. And she's acted like she'd been there her whole life. So if she and this Elena girl know each other…"

Kelly looked at Elena. "She might be one of them." She stormed into the room and grabbed Elena. "Alright. We _really _need an explanation! How do you know Valentina?"

"Simple: I hate her. She hates me. What more is there to say?"

"I don't know. Why do you hate each other? How do you know each other? A back-story would be nice here." She let go of Elena but still pushed her into the wall.

Elena pushed her hair away from her face. "Alright. I'll just say it. I'm a Meridian."

"AHA! I knew it!" Jack cried. Everyone looked at her. "Well, I didn't know…all that much…at all… I just wanna be right about something, OK?"

Elena looked at him and then turned back to Kelly. "Valentina and I used to be inseparable. Never seen without each other. Then, one day, her true love proposed to me." Kelly stared at her in both shock and confusion. "It was also discovered that her most prized possession was found amidst my belongings and she claimed I had stolen it. And her boyfriend. When I retaliated, she attacked me. And later she tried to kill me. Finally, she had my death in her grip but was stopped in her tracks by one of the Elders. They banished her, forced her to live off the youth of other creatures, and transformed her into…"

"A snake," Kelly finished for her.

Elena nodded. "But it was obvious even after she was sent into the dark forest from which no one had before returned that she would find her way out and back to me and she would again try to kill me. So the Elders sent me here. Ever since that day, I've been here on Acmetropolis. And just in time, too. Merely a few nights afterwards, my people were struck into the center of a horrible battle in the midst of an even more terrible war. All of them were killed. Except for 3: me, Valentina, and some guy who's name escapes me."

"Henry something," said Lucy, "We killed him a year ago."

"OK, so just 2 then."

Rev then heard the computer in the next room beeping. He raced in there and came back with a piece of paper. "Ooh-goodie-gang-it-looks-like-we-got-a-new-mission-to-work-on-unless-of-course-it-was-the-same-person-we've-been-fighting-all-day-in-which-case-I-realize-the-danger-and-take-back-my-'goodie.'"

Nadine sighed. "Rev! Just tell us what happened!"

"Bank-robbery-on-the-South-Side."

"OK, let's go," said Benny.

"Whoa!" Lexi said, pinning him down, "Don't think so! Broken wrist!"

"It's the aftermath! We'll just be doing investigation!"

Lexi sighed. "Fine! Go!" Benny went to prepare for the mission. Lexi turned to Nadine. "Watch him."

"Little brother duty. Gotcha." Nadine ran off.

_At the crime scene…_

The cops had already begun the investigation when the Loonakids got there.

"What happened?" Michael asked the head cop.

"Someone broke in, busted the security cameras, robbed the place, and killed the teller," the head cop answered.

The team raced into the building. The girls went to see what was taken while the boys checked for clues. Except for Kelly.

Kelly saw something in the back room. She raced into the dark room and closed the door behind her. "I know you're there. I'm not like most people. I can see you."

The Ghost walked closer and into her line of sight. It was the teller that'd been killed.

Kelly walked closer. "Wanna tell me what happened?"

"Some woman came in. Seemed normal. Then she said she was robbing the place. Obviously, I didn't put up much of a fight."

"Let me guess. Brunette, green eyes, mixed your blood, had a habit of turning into a snake?"

"No. Blonde, blue eyes that flashed green, snapped my neck, had some sort of hypnotizing voice."

Kelly's eyes widened. That was a new one. What's worse is that Valentina wasn't the culprit. They had 2 bad guys to deal with now. "When your soul left your body, did you see anything suspicious?"

"Well, I did catch a glimpse of her sending some sort of energy blast at the security camera and knocking it out."

Kelly then realized that their new bad guy was likely a Witch of some sort. Which meant that she'd used some sort of magic to jinx the camera by exploding it. Which meant if anyone tried to draw info from the destroyed security footage… Which was what Ryan was preparing to do that minute! "I gotta go."

"Wait! You have to help me!"

"I'll get back to you!" Kelly ran off. She raced over to the security room.

Ryan was there already. He mixed his techno powers with his magic and began to read the footage.

"Ryan, don't—"

Too late. The computers shocked him.

She grabbed him and pulled him away before the jinx could penetrate him. "—do that."

Ryan looked at his hands. They hurt, he couldn't move his fingers, and he could already see that the spell was manifesting even despite the failed efforts of penetration. "What happened?"

"Our culprit here wasn't Valentina. It was some sort of Siren-Witch-thing. When she destroyed the camera, she must have seen us coming and planted a jinx."

"More like a Scorch Hex."

"The one that overheats the system so you melt from the inside?"

"It's times like this I really hate being a Warlock."

"It's OK. Danni taught us the spell to restore it."

"Well, hurry!"

Kelly grabbed his hands, closed her eyes, and breathed deeply, weaving the spell in her mind to remove the hex. A stream of her magic flowed into Ryan and removed the curse before it could do anything serious.

…and neither of them saw a red stream of light flow from Ryan into Kelly.

Ryan let go of her to break off the spell once his sister was done. "Thanks. Now let's get the others and get out of here."

Kelly nodded and followed him. … And on the way out, she hastily took off the sweater she'd been wearing over her uniform.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Elena was pacing the living room of the tower the next morning. "So let me get this straight: your friend here died 2 months ago and came back as a Ghost on the wrong planet, Valentina stowed away on your ship when you saved him, she's currently regaining her strength through the blood of teenagers, and now there's some sort of mind-controlling Witch we have to deal with."

Tech nodded. "Yeah, that's pretty much it."

"That's it. You need me."

"Yeah, we all realize you can help us fight Valentina," Sophie acknowledged, "But we also realize that you're a Meridian—the very people who have spelled nothing but trouble for us in the past. And we also realize that even if we could trust you beyond helping us fight Valentina, we have no proof that you can fight this other evil thing we're dealing with."

"She's right, sister," said Duck, "Leave this one to the professionals. You can deal with the creepy snake girl and then you can go back to knitting on your home planet."

Elena glared at him. She stormed over to him, kicked him in the gut, grabbed him by the neck with one hand and the wrists with the other, and pinned him to the floor. "I lost my home planet when Valentina decided to kill me! Now go ahead and make your jokes for now but without me, you won't be alive to make those jokes much longer, when Valentina alone comes after you, let alone this new bad guy." She let go of him.

"OK, OK, I believe you." Duck ran off.

Archer walked up to Elena. "How can we trust this girl? We barely know her! Not to mention her buddy is the whole reason we're looped into this mess."

"Mock all you want, you little bulldog," said Elena, "I'm telling you, something major is at work here."

Rev raced in. "Guys-there's-a-press-conference-today-apparently-Valentina-has-been-really-busy-with-the-murders."

"We'd better monitor this thing," said Daniella, "Maybe someone there knows something we don't."

"And maybe someone knows something they shouldn't," added Ace.

"So someone should be there to make sure neither of those is the case," said Robert.

Naturally, everyone looked at "Witch-of-disguise" Kelly.

Kelly looked at them in return. She sighed, giving in, and walked off. "I'm all over the place lately."

_Later…_

Kelly snuck into the press conference room when no one was looking. So no one would recognize her (or at least realize that she was too young to be a reporter), she was also disguised in a trench coat, fedora, and pair of sunglasses. She waited and listened, making sure no one was asking any questions that seemed alarm-worthy. Nothing. Finally, the last question came suspiciously to her. Clearly, she should've seen that coming (especially being a psychic). Unfortunately, she hadn't and was unprepared. _Oh, well. I'll wing it._ She stood up. "Kara Kingsley, Acme Press. Are you sure that these attacks couldn't possibly have been by…oh, I don't know—a shape-shifting alien?"

"Uh—" started the guy at the podium.

"An out-of-shape cobra?"

"I'm not so certain that—"

"Perhaps some freakishly deformed mutant Witch—"

"I GET IT!"

Kelly stopped.

"Could you please just sit down?"

Kelly nodded and sat back down…making the chair collapse. She looked around at everyone. "Ha, ha, I'm just gonna—" She scrambled up and raced out the door to meet the others outside. "I am so getting you back for this."

"This line of work calls for undercover stuff, sis," said Ryan.

Kelly sighed and took off the disguise. _Man, it seems hotter in here than usual. _"Well, no one thought anything about magic. The guy holding the conference had no comment about anything referring to magic. But the murders they were talking about were definitely at the hands/fangs of Valentina."

"Alright," said Nadine, "Now we just have to find her and wipe her out before she can do anything serious."

"No, no, wait!" Sarah said, stopping them, "That's what she wants! She wants to get us cornered so she can snap the trap and get us in her clutches and from there on out we're nothing to her but an all-you-can-eat youth buffet!"

"So what do we do?" asked Jack, "Just let her keep draining the youth from the local teen populace?"

"No, just keep her on the ropes till we find a way to stop her. Maybe Elena can even help us with that. In the meantime, we also need to start finding a way around this other bad guy that was robbing the bank while we were dealing with Valentina."

Kelly sighed. "You guys get going. I kind of have a deal to follow up on." She walked off in the opposite direction the team went. And as she walked down the hall that led out the lobby (the rest of the team took the back exit), she grabbed one of the pamphlets and started fanning herself.

_A little while later…_

Kelly walked up to the Ghost in the back room of the bank. "Here you go. Your wife's dying love note."

The teller smiled at her. "Thank you."

"Yeah, just doing my job." She started to leave. Then she proceeded to zap up an ice pack and stick it to her head. "Man, it's hot in here." Just after leaving the room, she opened the door enough to peak back into the room.

The Ghost read the note and smiled. After he was done, he disappeared in a blinding flash of light. He'd crossed over.

Kelly sighed. "Vampires, pain in the neck—except Austin. Ghosts, deal-able. Undead altogether…fickle." She walked off. Then her cell phone rang. She picked it up. "Hello?"

_"Kelly, it's Ryan. You've gotta meet me and Sarah at the old karaoke restaurant. We think that Witch-Siren-whatever might be going there and we wanna scope the place."_

"On my way." Kelly hung up. After she'd hung up she got an idea: her phone had a fan app. She quickly turned it on and let it let loose a breeze of cool air. "Oh, that feels good!" She walked off…not even noticing the ice pack she'd zapped up melting and then burning in her grip.

_Later…_

Kelly, Ryan, and Sarah stood in a line to get into the aforementioned karaoke restaurant.

"So let me get this straight," said Sarah, "This 'Witch-Siren-whatever' has a power almost exactly like mine and she's using it and her magic to take over the world?"

"That's how we're reading it," said Kelly.

"Man, some people can be so evil."

"Don't worry, Sare, I'm sure it won't happen to you," said Ryan.

"RYAN!" both sisters snapped.

"Oh, that's _not _where you were going with that!"

Kelly sighed. "Let's just get in there and scope the place so we can leave."

Ryan nodded. "Right." He started to lead their trio into the building but they were stopped by a bouncer.

"You on the list?" asked the bouncer.

"There's a list?" Ryan asked.

_8 seconds later…_

All 3 coyote teens were thrown into a pile of trash in the back alley.

Sarah sat up on the ground. "That could've gone better."

Ryan sat up, too. "Since when is there a list?"

Kelly sat up last. "I know! Like 2 years ago, there's was barely 18 people coming to this place in one night! When did they get so exclusive?"

Ryan led his sister's to the end of the alley to peak around the corner and find a way to sneak in. All this got him was even more upset. "What—he let those 3 in without saying anything!"

Sarah blinked. "Ryan, that guy was on 10 movies, that girl's on Broadway, and she has 3 bestselling records."

"So?" Ryan cried, "We've saved the world like 13 times!"

"No one knows that was us!" Kelly responded.

"What's your point?"

Kelly sighed. "Look, obviously, they're only concerned with letting in celebrities. So we've gotta pull a major incognito…"

_A few minutes later…_

Kelly walked into the restaurant in a strawberry blonde wig, brown sunglasses, and a faux fur coat.

The host walked up to her. "Welcome to—"

"2 steps back!" Ryan snapped. The host complied.

Kelly looked at everyone staring at her and spoke in an obviously fake voice: "Please. Stop looking at me! Why can't I just…" She flipped her wig. "…blend in?"

The host looked at her. "Might I ask who you are?"

Kelly scoffed. "How do you not know…" She flipped the wig again. "…me?" She looked at Ryan. "Papi, tell him who I be."

Ryan looked at her through his sunglasses. "Me?"

Kelly glared at him affirmatively.

Ryan panicked. "Uh…that's…she's…" He saw a tray of Italian food go by. His mind instantly blanked to that. He hadn't eaten in 5 hours. "That's Liz Onya!"

His sisters both glared at him.

The host, however, bought it. "Oh. Right this way, Miss…uh…Onya."

As they walked to their table, Kelly glared harder at her brother. "'Liz Onya'?" she hissed.

"Hey, you were almost about to be Pork Choppa!" he snapped back.

Sarah sighed and sat down. She started looking around at the women that were there. "Brown hair…brunette…redhead…brown hair…blonde!" She hit a button on the side of her sunglasses and it zoomed in on the blonde. "Brown eyes. Nuts!" She kept looking.

Kelly, sitting next to her, started to take off the coat.

Ryan stopped her. "You'll blow your cover!"

"Sorry, it's just really hot in here."

Sarah looked at her. She hit another button on her sunglasses and a thermometer measure of the temperature appeared on the lenses. "It's 62 degrees in here and we're underneath an air vent and a ceiling fan. How on earth can you be hot?"

Ryan looked at her. "Kelly…"

Kelly looked at him and instantly looked away.

"That hex you broke from me last night…"

"Ryan…"

"You didn't break it, you took it on yourself!"

"I didn't mean to!"

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"I was just trying to protect you! I didn't mean to—I didn't wanna—"

"Kelly, by now it's too late to break the hex!"

"Unless we can kill the caster! If we can corner that little hobgoblin—"

"Say what?" Ryan and Sarah both said.

"Danni says it's the worst insult you can give a person."

"Well, I guess that would apply here," said Sarah, "No one messes with my family." She kept looking around for their culprit, now even more intent on finding her.

That's when a waiter walked up to Kelly. "Excuse me, would you mind going on next?"

Kelly looked at him. "Say what?"

"Everyone who comes in here has to sing."

Kelly was now panicking. "O-OK." She walked off.

Sarah looked at Ryan once she was out of earshot. "Let's get out of here before this train wrecks. We saw what happened with the veg-heads, let's not repeat that at double temperature." She walked off in the opposite direction, Ryan going the other way. But on her way out, Sarah stopped. She'd caught sight on someone who fit the description of their culprit, sitting alone at a table. She looked closer with the sunglasses. "Blonde hair…blue eyes…" She took off her sunglasses and stuck them in her pocket. She walked over to the woman. "Excuse me. Could I talk to you for a second?"

"Actually, I have to go." The woman grabbed her bag and walked off.

Sarah stared after her suspiciously. She inconspicuously held up a hand. "_Sorrow of mind, heart, and soul, show me now what guilt you hold_." She discreetly zapped the woman. She was instantly shown images of the 3 men the woman had just recently killed. Sarah half-smiled. She had their culprit. And she now had a name. "Esmeralda, eh?" She held up her hand and hit a button on her watch, activating a COMM link. "Guys, I found her. I'm following her right now." She turned off her watch without waiting for a reply and started following the woman she now knew to be Esmeralda.

Meanwhile, Kelly was on the stage. She had no choice but to go through with this. She looked around. Ryan and Sarah had already left. That made her feel a little better. It would be even better if the hot stage lights weren't so…well, hot. Still she pulled herself together and started up the first song that jumped to mind: "Can't Walk Away" by Anica. "_ I'll stand my ground, for right now, but I just know that I can't win, I don't know the rules to this game but, I hear the wind calling out my name and I just can't resist, 'cause I know it's worth a try, can't let myself fall without a fight, but I can only see behind my back, never willing to let go of the past, the road in front of me threatens change, but I can't stop the world from spinning, oh-oh… The drizzle that I'm used to, turned into pouring rain, nothing's gonna ever be the same, the blankets that kept me warm were torn, from under my hands, I'm facing the storm instead, but I know it's worth a try, won't let myself fall without a fight, but I can only see behind my back, never willing to let go of the past, the road in front of me threatens change, but I can't stop the world from spinning, can't walk away, I can't walk away, I can't walk away, oh-whoa-oh-oh… Oh-oh… _" When finally the song ended, she jumped off the stage and ran off at full speed. Once she had left, she noticed that her watch was beeping at a really low volume that only Lexi's super ears or hers or Austin's Vampire ears could pick up. She hit the button to play the COMM message.

Out back, Sarah was watching from the shadows as Esmeralda walked into the alley. Esmeralda kept walking until she reached the center of the alley. Suddenly, she stopped and weakly grabbed her stomach. That's when 5 young men came into the alley. Esmeralda smiled. "Hey, boys."

One of them looked at her oddly. "Yo."

Sarah saw what was coming. "_So that I don't fall under her spell, let my ears hear nothing she tells_." She zapped herself. She listened to the rest of the conversation.

"No, we're just gonna…" said the boy. He led his boys towards the door of the building on the other end of the alley. That's when Esmeralda started to sing.

Sarah couldn't hear it. She sighed with relief. Then she watched the rest of it.

She could see Esmeralda singing and the boys instantly began to walk towards her. That's when one of them got close enough to her that she could touch him. She put her hands on him…and then quickly reached into her bag and pulled out a dagger, which she quickly thrust into his heart. When he collapsed, she leaned over him and pressed her hands against his chest, a white mist of energy flowing from him into her. She went for another boy. She plunged the dagger into his abdomen and thrust it upwards until he bled out, producing the same light show. She went over to the next boy and, in one swift motion, snapped his neck and took his soul. She threw him into the next boy hard enough to knock that boy against a brick wall, giving him enough head trauma to die when she simply held her foot against his throat. That only left one boy left for her. She smiled at him. "You know, in this light, you're kind of cute." She grabbed him and pinned him to the wall. She kissed him. Hard. As she did so, she clutched his chest with all her might, squeezing as hard as she could. Once she'd had enough, she grabbed him by the throat and let his soul flow into her. She thrust the heel of her hand up against his dead throat and the body lit up in flames, making her let go. It was ashes before it hit the ground. She smiled and held up a sparking hand. "8 down, 92 to go."

"Hey!"

Esmeralda whirled around to see Sarah there, already having traded her disguise for her black and blue Loonakids uniform.

"I hear you're in the murder business. I'll bid 5000 bucks for a wanted convict."

"Going once, twice—" She ran at Sarah and kicked her in the gut, hard enough to knock her back into a pile of trash cans. "Not interested!"

Sarah got up. "Would you believe that's the second time someone's thrown me into a pile of trash tonight?"

Esmeralda just moved to kick her again. She screamed her off. Esmeralda regained herself quickly and started at her. The 2 were quickly fighting. Finally, Esmeralda grabbed her by the wrists and kneed her in the gut, knocking her to the ground out of breath. Esmeralda whipped out her dagger and moved to strike it through her heart. Sarah, thinking quickly, held out her hand and zapped the dagger across the alley.

Esmeralda smirked at her. "Clever little Witch. Too bad I'm too strong for you." She held out her hand to make the dagger come back to her…and all that happened was that the blade twitched. She started pulling with her power. She'd exhausted it fighting Sarah. She groaned and gave up. "You win this round. But after about 15 more souls, my powers won't fade so quickly. And another 25 after that, they won't be fading at all. And after I've rounded the full 100, oh…you'll be sorry. All of you." She ran across the alley to grab her dagger and raced off, disappearing before Sarah could even get off the ground.

A couple minutes later, when Sarah finally regained herself enough from the beating to stand up, Kelly and Ryan raced up to her in uniform and the rest of the gang found the alley. Sarah glared at them all as she regained her breath. "Nice timing."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

"It's nothing serious," Kelly told her mother for the 153rd time (and yes, she had been counting).

"'Nothing serious'?" Sophie asked, "A Jumping Bean Hex is nothing serious. When a half-Vamp's temperature shoots up to 124 overnight? That's serious!"

Rev was across the room, examining injured Sarah. "Well-this-chick-sure-got-you-worse-than-Valentina-did-of-course-I-guess-if-you-count-what-Valentina-did-to-Benny-then-I-guess-it's-an-even-match-man-how-are-we-gonna-beat-these-guys?"

"REV!" Sarah snapped, "You're not helping! Just tell me the damage!"

"Well-she-bruised-both-your-wrists-when-she-grabbed-them-she's-got-quite-a-grip-and-she-flipped-your-stomach-a-little-when-she-kicked-you-so-that's-gonna-take-a-couple-hours-to-go-back-to-normal-and-of-course-you're-majorly-bruised-all-over-from-falling-on-the-pavement-but-other-than-that-you're-fine."

Sarah looked at him. "Thanks."

Benny smirked at her. "Guess my broken wrist ain't so bad now, huh?"

Sarah glared at him.

"I'll be quiet." He walked over to the other side of the room.

Rev looked at Sarah's charts. "Well-in-a-few-hours-you-should-feel-a-lot-better-but-just-to-be-safe-we-should-probably-administer-an-antibiotic."

Tech sighed. "I'll do it." He reached for the syringe on the table…and his hand went right through it. He tried again with the same results. He sighed, giving up when he remembered his…condition. "Right."

Rev gave him a sympathetic look and started caring for Sarah.

Sophie walked over to her husband. "Tech…are you OK?"

"I'm fine. Just…let me be alone for a little while." He walked through the wall into the next room.

Sophie sighed. She knew where he was headed. She left the medical wing and ran down to the kitchen. She opened a drawer and pulled out a set of keys. She ran back through the hall to the one door in the tower that had been locked for the entirety of the past 2 months. She opened it and turned on the lights to find Ghost-like Tech standing in the center of the room, staring at his old junk. Sophie sighed and walked over to him, closing the door behind her. "Kind of thought the moment we unlocked this place would be a bit more dramatic."

Tech looked at her.

Sophie half-smiled. "We just didn't wanna touch anything while you were gone, we…left everything exactly the way it was."

Tech nodded. "I noticed."

Sophie looked at him. "Something's wrong. I know. It's not just my Witch's sense or my Ghost sense—I can feel you. I know you, Tech. And I know something's wrong. You can tell me. That's one thing you never lost."

Tech looked at her again. "Right. No secrets."

"That, too."

Tech nodded again. "It's just... I hate this. I can't touch anything. I can't take care of our injured teammates. I can't even hug my own daughter! And I can't kiss you."

Sophie looked at him.

"That's what I've been waiting for, for 2 months now. To be with you guys again…and I still don't have that. Right now, it's probably better that I should've just stayed dead this time."

Sophie reached for his hand to comfort him. But she went right through him.

"You see what I mean?"

"Tech, we need you here. In whatever form. Just to know that you're here, you're alive, you're safe—that's all we need. It doesn't matter that you—"

Tech just looked at her.

She sighed, not knowing what to say. "Rev and Kelly and I can act as your mediums. You can just tell us what to do—"

"Sophie, that's not fair to any of us! I…I just can't… Yeah, I'm here and I'm safe. But I'm not alive."

Sophie looked at her feet. She had no response for that.

Tech blinked. "You're speechless."

"Hard not to be after that little conversation."

"Yeah, but you always know what to say, especially to me. I can't believe you wouldn't…"

Sophie looked at him.

"Look, we'll find a way to stop Valentina and Esmeralda. Elena's here to help, Austin's here, Brenda's on speed-dial—"

"I'm gonna find a way to bring you back."

Tech stared at her in shock.

"I'm not gonna let you suffer like this. You're obviously not allowed to cross over and you're not gonna be happy staying here if you're stuck like this. I know you're in pain and I am going to do something about it no matter what you or anyone else says. I'm gonna bring you back if it's the last thing I do." With that said, she walked off.

Tech sighed once she was gone. "Yup. Always knows what to say. And always knows when to leave to make it a dramatic exit."

_Across town…_

Valentina was in an old warehouse (what is it with the bad guys and the old warehouses?). She sighed as she looked in a mirror. "Soon those Loonakids will be in my grasp and I will have their power and their immortal youth and I will conquer this world. And nothing shall stop me!" She then noticed something wrong. Her dark black hair had a streak of gray in it. "Uh oh." She looked at her hand. It was slightly wrinkly. She ran out of the building. She saw a young woman walk by. She snaked over to her and grabbed her by the wrist, pulling her into the warehouse. She cut both their hands with her razor-sharp nails and mixed their blood. Her youth was restored and the young woman turned into an old woman and collapsed on the floor. Valentina raced back to her mirror. She looked not a day over 21. "Much better. But I'm still a little hungry. Could use a snack for later." She walked back over to the door. She walked outside to see a young blonde woman with blue eyes walk by. "Hey, you there!"

The young woman whirled around to glare at her, her eyes flashing green eerily. "Back off, vermin!"

Valentina was taken aback.

The young woman suddenly let her eyes revert back to blue and grabbed her head weakly.

Valentina walked closer. "Something wrong here?"

The young woman glared at darkly. "Yeah. But I know what I need to make it all better." She grabbed Valentina by the throat and lifted her from the ground.

Valentina turned into her snake form and slithered around the young woman's arm, wrapping herself around her neck. She turned back into human form to reveal that she now had her arm wrapped around the young woman's neck.

The young woman reached over her shoulder to grab her, first dragging her into the warehouse and collapsing them both on a stack of boxes. When they got up, the blonde woman had the brunette woman by the throat and the brunette woman had the blonde woman by the hair and neck.

"I'll let go when you let go," Valentina hissed through her constricted throat.

"Works for me," the young woman hissed past her injured neck.

Finally, both of them let go and collapsed on the floor to catch their breath.

Valentina glared at her. "You're alright."

The young woman smiled at her. "Not a bad fighter yourself."

"Got a name?"

"Do you?"

She smirked. "Valentina."

"Esmeralda."

The 2 got up from the floor.

Esmeralda stretched herself out. "Nice move with the snake thing there. Where'd that come from?"

"Let's just say I have a problem with authority. Where'd you get so strong?"

"Let's just say I've got powers that are kind of insatiable."

"Back-story worthy?"

"I'm a mind-controller. Siren-blooded, Witch-born—I lost my power in a horrible spell gone wrong. But if I can collect 100 souls through my reawakened magic—specifically my always-handy-no-matter-what-I-get-hit-with hypnotic singing voice—then I can manipulate anything."

"Anything?"

"Absolutely anything. And then this world is mine. So what about you?"

"I got in a little fight with a little brat I used to know. My people banished me. I'm cursed to live my life as a snake, feeding off the youth of others by combining our blood. But if I can get my hands on those pesky Loonakids, I can use their immortality to keep myself young, strong, and thriving forever. And their power will contain my more reptilian side until I have enough control over it that I no longer need to feed off of others to keep myself alive. And the best part is that the Loonakids won't be able to interfere because I'll have their power, and I'll use it to take the world as my own!"

Esmeralda was leaning back to avoid the slam of the tirade.

"Too much?"

"A little."

"Right."

Esmeralda then got an idea. "You know what? How about this: we split the profits 50/50."

Valentina looked at her. "Rule the world together?"

"Well, yeah, we both want the same thing. And we both have enough power to throw this world into our control. Why compete for it? If we can get our hands on—as you so quaintly worded it—'those pesky Loonakids', then you get their blood, I get their souls, and together at our individual maximum powers, we can not only rule the world BUT THE UNIVERSE!"

Valentina was the one leaning back now.

"Too much?"

"A little."

Esmeralda nodded.

"But you do have a point." She whipped out a dagger. "A very sharp one at that." She thrust the dagger into a nearby table. "When those Loonakids come for us, we'll catch them and all who stand in our way. And together, we'll destroy them all. And we'll rule side by side!"

"First things first, we gotta get ourselves powerful enough to make them the final stage in our plan."

"So? All we gotta do is wait until the Loonakids are busy or at their weakest and then strike a major town hot spot and kill whoever hangs there. That'll give me all the youth I want and you can take the souls of everyone I feed on. It's a win-win. For us."

Esmeralda smiled. "I like you."

Valentina smirked. "What's not to like?"


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

A portal opened in Anasala Castle and out of it came the gang.

Kelly sighed. "At least we didn't fall out this time."

"Let's just hurry and find the others so we can find a way to remove the Scorch Hex," Sophie said, pushing Kelly off, "We can't fight Valentina _and _Esmeralda with one of our teammates like this!"

Finally, they gang found Jupiter, Karen, Carmen, and Arielle in the kitchen with Haven.

Jupiter was the first one to notice them. She smiled. "Kelly!" She raced to hug her best friend…and instantly jumped back. "Ow! You're hot!"

"Kind of why we're here," said Sarah, holding an ice pack to her head.

Kelly noticed the ice pack. "Where'd you get that?"

"From the fridge."

"Give me that!"

The two sisters started fighting for it.

Karen got between them. "What happened to you guys? You look worse than usual!"

"Thanks," said Kelly, "A girl always wants to be told that!"

Karen nodded. "Sorry, it's just…ouch."

Jupiter sighed. "Actually, it's a good thing you guys are here. There's kind of several things I've been meaning to tell you."

Daniella walked up to her. "Well, we can't stay very long, so make it quick."

Jupiter looked at her and then at the other 4 in the room. "I guess some of it can wait. But there is one thing you really need to know soon."

Kelly walked up to Jupiter. "What is it you wanted to tell us?"

Jupiter hesitated. "You know that vision Joy had in the plaza a few months before you first came to Anasala?"

Kelly thought about it. She remembered that. "Yeah."

"Well…everyone in the plaza that day was sworn to secrecy so as not to alter the course of time…or get you guys in trouble with the Council ahead of time."

"Why would we—"

"Wait a minute," said Ryan, "Why are you telling us this? If everyone there was magically sworn to secrecy—"

"I wasn't. And I was there."

Ryan and Kelly's both stared at her, wide-eyed.

Arielle smiled. "You little sneak."

Jupiter smirked. "I was still crazy at the time, it's not like I was there on purpose." She held out a hand to Kelly.

Kelly smiled, gestured to the other to join hands, and took Jupiter's.

_Jupiter was behind a cottage in the plaza outside the Castle._

Nadine looked around the memory. "This is weird."

"Wait a minute," said Jupiter, "Arielle's court is coming with the Coven."

_Arielle walked out of the Castle with her court. "We have to discuss it sometime."_

_"But we don't want to talk about it," said Penelope._

_"Penelope, it's customary for the court themselves to review the queen or king's choice of successor. And in this case, there's more than one throne up for grabs so we have a lot of reviewing to do."_

_"Just tell us who you picked!" Haven snapped._

_"Fine. Given the circumstances, I'd say my choice is clear…"_

_Haven smiled, expectantly._

_"The Spellman triplets."_

_Haven stopped smiling. "Daniella, Wendy, and Sophie? You're kidding, right?"_

_Arielle looked at her sister. "They are the most worthy of my possible choices—"_

_"But what about their little history?"_

_"What? The falling for mortals thing?"_

_"That and all their crazy shenanigans, especially Wendy!"_

"Understandable," Lexi commented.

_"Come on, are you sure there's no one else?" asked Haven._

_Arielle considered. "Taking the laws into account… Nope, no one."_

_Haven groaned._

_"Look, if you're so anxious for someone else to take the throne—"_

_Suddenly, Joy screamed._

_Arielle whirled around to face her. "Joy? Are you OK? Is it a vision?"_

_Joy gave her a look. "I'm screaming in pain. What do you think it is?" She leaned her head back and groaned._

_Jupiter, still hiding behind the cottage, cowered._

_Joy tried to calm down. "Oh, man, you got me thinking about the Spellman sisters and now I've got the Loonatics in my head…" She trailed off. "Oh, boy."_

_"What is it?" asked Amanda, "Are the Loonatics in danger?"_

_"Not yet…"_

"'Not yet'?" asked Lucy, "The Loona_tics _aren't the ones around anymore."

"Wait for it!" Jupiter snapped.

_"There's some great big war going on…sometime in the next century…" She groaned again. "50 years mortal time."_

"That's not until the next century," said Sarah, "Half of us probably won't be here by then. What's this got to do with us?"

Jupiter shushed her.

_"One of them gets attacked…" Joy opened her eyes. __"Uh oh." She finally calmed down. __The vision was over. "One of them gets attacked and another casts a spell to help them…in front of mortals."_

_Arielle's eyes widened. "They're gonna reveal magic?"_

"I thought we did that a few months back," said Ryan.

"Not quite," said Jupiter, "The Loonakids revealed to a select group of mortals that they do have supernatural power and that Werewolves and Trolls and Ogres exist. Magic itself was never an issue. We're talking about the whole world discovering Anasala."

Kelly's eyes widened. "Because of us?"

_Arielle considered. "The Council can't find out. They'd strip the Loonatics' powers and Acmetropolis would be doomed. And if Acmetropolis falls, Anasala wouldn't be far behind." She took out her wand and waved it, a bolt of magic going to everyone in her sight that had heard this…of course, Jupiter wasn't included since she was hiding. Arielle put up her wand. "No one can breathe a word of this. Otherwise, the Loonatics are in danger. Joy, back in the Castle, make sure Mars didn't hear anything you said." Joy nodded and left. "As for the rest of you…pertaining to my successor, I think we've reached a decision and are in agreement." With that, she raced off to call the triplets._

_"What—but-but-but—" Haven started._

_After Arielle was gone, not willing to listen, Brad gave his baby sister a sympathetic look. "Maybe one day." He gave her a pat on the back and left with Shaya and the others._

_Haven stared after them, spitefully._

The memory faded and the group was back in the halls of the Castle, breaking their formation now that the spell was over.

Kelly blinked. "Wow."

Jupiter nodded.

Lucy looked at them. "And I thought what we were going through now was bad."

Jupiter looked at her. "What's wrong?"

Kelly hesitated. "Well…"

"What did you do now?" asked Carmen.

"You're not back on the pineapples, are you?" asked Karen.

"No! No! Nothing like that! My magic is perfectly fine!"

"Yeah!" Ryan snapped, "Except your little healing spell last night got you caught in a Scorch Hex!"

Haven gasped. "Kelly! You can't be serious!"

"Oh, I'm serious," Kelly said. She held up her wrist. Her watch had been modified again. Instead of telling time, it warned of her pulse and temperature. Right now, her pulse was normal (you know, for a half-Vamp), but her temperature was at 143 and climbing.

"Well, that explains the first degree burn from the hug," said Jupiter.

Kelly sighed. "Guys, this is bad! Since I wasn't the one who directly received the curse and I'm half-dead already, I'm gonna get more time to fight this thing off. But I can't do that right now, because we've gotta fight a Siren-Witch and an alien snake!"

"What—The only way to break a Scorch Hex once the healing charm has failed is if you can kill the caster!" said Carmen.

"Told you," Kelly told Ryan.

"Now is not the time for 'I told you so,' Miss 144!"

"143!"

Ryan showed her the watch.

"Oh, well, look at that."

Haven looked at the clock. "You're only rising a degree a minute. The way the Scorch Hex penetrates the system of someone like you, I'd say you still have about 5 hours before it gets incredibly serious."

Kelly glared at her. "'Incredibly serious'?" She walked over to a husk of corn and grabbed it, producing a whole bag's worth of popcorn in two seconds. "It would take Nadine 5 minutes to do that!"

Jack picked up a piece of the popcorn and ate it. "Hmm. Needs butter."

Kelly glared at him, grabbed a stick of butter, and held it over his head with her thumb and forefinger. That was all it needed to melt almost instantly and drown him in it.

"That'll do."

Jupiter walked over to her friend. "OK, your attitude is heating up. You need to get out fast!" She started to push her off but was burned on contact again. "Ow! Ooh! Seriously, take an ice bath!"

Kelly sighed. "Tried that. 20 minutes of NOTHING!"

Wendy walked over there. "I actually think the ice raised her temperature by 5 degrees."

Arielle sighed and opened the portal. "You need to go now if you're gonna kill the caster before that curse gets too hot."

The gang hurriedly jumped through the portal and were sent back to the tower.

Carmen looked at Jupiter when the portal closed. "You OK?"

Jupiter nodded. "Yeah. Got to see my best friend/princess again—even though it was because she was in danger—and I get to cross one thing off my list of things to tell them."

Karen looked at her. "How long is the list?"

Jupiter sighed. "Long enough to scale Mt. Everest." With that, she walked off.


	10. Chapter 10

I am so sorry this took so long. Writer's block hasn't really been a problem for me in this series but I just hit a pipeline of it. Ouch, I know. Oh, well, hopefully the size of this chapter and the suspense leading to the next one should make up for said situation. Bear with me on the next chapter, too. After this story, I shouldn't have this problem again for a while, don't worry. Now on with the story!

Chapter 10

The gang reappeared in the tower. They fell through the portal. Kelly landed next to the stove and quickly scurried to the fridge and stuck her head inside it, sighing with slight relief. Ryan, Sarah, and Michael landed on the couch. Jack landed on one side of the couch and Robert on the other. Duck, Wendy, Daniella, Sophie, and Rev all landed on the coffee table or against it. Nadine, Benny, and Lucy landed in different chairs. Austin, Ace, Lexi, and Slam flew into the wall.

And Tech shot through the island and landed on the floor. "I'm not sure whether to interpret that part as good or bad."

Benny, cradling his still injured hand, walked over to him. "You OK?"

Tech looked at him. "Yeah. More or less."

Sophie scurried over there. "You sure?" She reached over to help him up, but her hand went right through his.

Tech helped himself up. "I'm said I'm fine." With that, he walked off through the wall.

Sophie stared after him, cradling the hand that had gone through his. She just couldn't deny it. She wanted him back. Really back. None of them wanted it this way, Tech specifically. But they had no way to bring him back completely. This was how it would have to be.

_Meanwhile…_

Valentina, in snake form, led Esmeralda to a dance club on the South Side.

"Mind telling me what we're doing here?" asked Esmeralda.

Valentina morphed into human form. "I'll show you." She turned a sign enough to reveal to Esmeralda what it said:

"Karaoke night – all comers accepted"

Maximum capacity – 500

Esmeralda smiled when she realized what her new friend's plan was.

A couple minutes later, Valentina, once again in snake form, opened the back door, leading Esmeralda to the backstage area. Valentina quickly found a victim.

Esmeralda nodded and discreetly took out her dagger.

Valentina turned back to human form and used the blade to slice her hand open.

Esmeralda then proceeded to sneak up on the victim from behind and slit his throat so he couldn't scream.

Valentina slithered over there and then mixed their blood, taking his youth.

Esmeralda simply held her hand over them, taking his soul.

The two villainesses exchanged smiles. The plan would work perfectly with them together. In fact, they had absolutely no need to ditch each other like any other villain team would. Together, they could hit 5 birds with two stones. Or…whatever.

25 victims later, the mic opened.

Esmeralda held up her sparking hand and smiled. "I'm at stage two already. After we hit this place completely, I'll be well over halfway to maximum power and I'll be nowhere near losing my power."

Valentina smirked and looked at herself in the mirror. "And I can see I'm back to myself." Sure enough, she was practically 16. "I just need those Loonakids' immortality and it'll stay this way. But I should probably keep hitting this place until I've got the full deal."

Esmeralda caught sight of the open mic, smiled again, and looked back at Valentina. "Hold it for me. We're about to get it all." With that, she strolled onto the stage. She held her hand behind her back to tell Valentina to stand by. She looked at the audience. There must have been about 40-something people there. Well, under maximum capacity, but who was she to complain? This was perfect! She smiled and snatched the mic. "Before I get started, allow me to just say how much I love a captive audience."

"Ha!" said a guy in the audience, "Joke's on you, lady! We ain't captive!"

Esmeralda glared at him, her eyes flashing eerie green. "Oh, really?" She snapped her fingers and all the doors slammed shut.

Valentina then slithered up to the front door, turned into her human form in front of everyone, and locked it.

You can guess how much panic came next.

Esmeralda just sang at full volume.

Everyone there (except Valentina, who, by Esmeralda's orders, had sense enough to block her ears first) was instantly knocked unconscious.

Esmeralda smiled. "You go first? Or shall I?"

Valentina just smirked and morphed back into snake form. She dove at a young woman and did what she wanted.

_Back at the tower…_

Kelly was in her room, sprawled on an ice bed under the full-blasted ceiling fan while the air conditioner was set to -100 degrees. Suddenly, the ice bed melted. "Oh, COME ON!"

Ryan peeked his head in the door and instantly came out shivering. "I d-d-don't think the ice t-treatment's w-w-working."

Austin sighed. "I'm sorry, but Kelly is in no position to fight Valentina or Esmeralda."

"But Benny can't do it either," said Nadine, gesturing to her little brother, "Not with his broken wrist. And he's our leader!"

"And I can't exactly face another fight with either of those two," said Sarah, who was still a little dizzy and sick from her encounter with Valentina and her fight with Esmeralda.

"Well, Nadine can take over as the leader for now," said Lucy, "And Robert, Jack, Ryan, Michael, and I can keep fighting with her and Austin and Elena. And the rest of the gang can keep looking for a way to deal with Tech's…problem."

Tech just stood by the island. "No kidding." He leaned against the island and fell through it. He pulled himself up and out. "Seriously."

_Back at the club…_

Esmeralda looked up from the body she was draining, her eyes filled with the white mist that was the essence of her victims' souls. She'd heard the whole thing by manipulating the sound waves' direction and strength. She smirked as the white mist faded from her eyes to reveal her irises' eerie green glow. She walked over to Valentina as her eyes turned back to their normal blue. "Valentina."

Valentina was sucking out the youth essence of one last victim. "What?"

"We're wearing the Loonies out. I think we can get them off one-by-one and it'll allow us to break them."

Valentina smiled as the plan sunk it. "That's perfect! And, you know, since Elena is fighting with them, we can just take what's rightfully mine back from her."

"I thought you said every Meridian except you and Elena was dead."

"I'm not talking about my boyfriend. I'm talking about my jewel!"

Esmeralda looked at her. But skipping right over that…there was still the matter of how they were going to get the last of the Loonakids separated to put their plan into action. Esmeralda smiled as she held up her sparking hand. "My power's past the fading. It's full-in, just limited. But I think I have enough to play with the Loonies a little."

_Back at the tower…_

Elena was sitting on the couch.

Michael approached her. "You're a little down, huh?"

Elena just looked at him.

"Why do I get the feeling you left something out of the story?"

Elena sighed. "Fine. I'll just say it: Valentina was the princess of Meridian when she went bad. And yeah, I took her boyfriend, but what really pushed her over the edge was when it was discovered that her sister had the royal jewel that had originally belonged to Valentina and that, with the royal jewel in her possession, the younger sibling was now the one next in line for the throne."

Michael blinked. "Oh."

Elena nodded. "And the royal jewel wasn't left on Meridian. Somehow, it's here. I just know. And she's not gonna stop till she has it. But once she does, since the kingdom is destroyed and the throne, therefore, no longer up for grabs, she'll channel its magic energy into herself and she'll become unspeakably powerful. We can't let that happen."

"What do you mean the royal jewel's here on Acmetropolis?" asked Robert.

"Well, apparently, the lost princess survived and she's here somewhere."

Robert blinked. "Oh."

Elena nodded again. "You guys say 'oh' a lot."

Suddenly, Rev's laptop beeped. "Uh-oh." He typed in a quick code and pulled up a map of Acmetropolis with several blinking dots. "Uh…looks-like-Valentina-and-Esmeralda-have-been-busy-they're-hitting-several-different-banks-and-museums-and-stuff-at-the-same-time-I-wonder-how-that-happened?"

"I bet Esmeralda's got a bunch of Vamps under her control," said Ryan, "We better check it out. Elena, you better come with us. Austin, you stay here with the others and we'll call you if we need backup."

"Uh…" Nadine said.

"Oh! Sorry! Didn't mean to—"

"…good idea."

Ryan smiled.

Nadine smiled back. "Come on. We'll get every spot at once if we split up." With that, she grabbed a list of addresses and led the group out, assigning sectors as they left the tower.

_Nadine…_

Nadine made her way to the bank she'd assigned herself. "Uh…isn't this the bank Esmeralda already robbed?" She walked in, curious. She looked around the darkness. She started up a fireball to give herself a light—

Suddenly, a burst of magic energy knocked her back into a wall.

Esmeralda was there. "Bet you didn't see that coming, did you, Firefighter?"

Nadine used the teller box to help herself stand up. "What…What'd you do to me?"

"Called a Weakening Charm. The longer it lasts, the more you're drained. Right now, it's shorting out your powers. In a few hours, you'll barely be able to stand up. By this time tomorrow, you probably won't be able to stand up. And by the time I'm at my full power…" She smirked. "You'll practically be dead."

Nadine just glared at her, breathing heavily.

"No use fighting me now. It'll only make it worse." She smiled and walked out.

Nadine just collapsed on the floor, too weak to do anything.

_Lucy…_

Lucy walked down a street leading towards her assigned hit. Suddenly, she heard a racket come from an alley she was passing. She looked down the alley. "Hello?" No response. She warily took out a stake and started down the alley, making sure to put up a shield around herself just to be safe. "I know someone's here." Still nothing. "Must have been a mouse or something." She let down the shield and turned around…walking right into Esmeralda. She gasped and backed away.

Esmeralda just grabbed her. "I think you have something my friend wants."

Lucy shook her head.

Esmeralda sighed. "You don't get it, do you? Your blood."

"I'm not—"

"_ Trust in me, just in me, close your eyes, and trust in me…_"

Suddenly, Lucy practically fainted in her arms.

"_You can sleep safe and sound, knowing I am around._" She held up a hand behind her back.

A snake began to slither over there.

"_Slip into silent slumber, sail on a silver mist, slowly and surely, your senses will cease to resist! _" She dropped Lucy to the ground.

The snake hissed at her and jumped at her.

Lucy came to screaming.

_Robert…_

Robert could feel something was wrong. Something was wrong with Lucy. "Luce?" He looked around. He saw no sign of any danger on the street he was on. Surely it was safe for him to follow the Warlock vibes to check on Lucy and then come back later.

But while he walked off, Valentina jumped him, pinning him to the ground by holding his arms up behind his back. "You wouldn't believe how fast that control freak can get around."

Robert tried to zap her.

Valentina just slithered out of the way of his spell and went back to pinning him down. "You really shouldn't have done that. You'd think by now people would know not to get me UPSET!" She yanked on his arms.

He cried out in pain.

_Jack…_

Jack was looking around an old museum. "Hello? Anybody here? Am I too late or too early or what? Nothing." With that, he started off.

Suddenly, someone appeared in the dark and began moving a very heavy object to fall on his head.

Needless to say, he was unconscious about 5 seconds later.

_Ryan…_

Ryan walked backwards down the dark street, holding his wand at the ready.

_Michael…_

Michael was walking backwards down his street as well.

Suddenly, the two brothers bumped into each other, yelped and whirled around to face each other.

"Ryan!" Michael snapped, "What are you doing here?"

"Nay assigned me the South Street Bank," Ryan answered.

"Nay assigned me the South Street Museum."

"Wow. Those two need to learn to branch out. I hope they didn't run into each other."

Suddenly, Valentina and Esmeralda jumped out of the shadows and jumped them. Valentina had Ryan pinned down and Esmeralda held down Michael.

"Not only have we run into each other," said Valentina, "We're working together. To get you."

"Of course, for the moment, it's just pure fun," Esmeralda giggled.

Valentina looked at her. "You wanna stage the attack or shall I?"

"We can't drain them too much."

"Then let's not. Just play a little."

Esmeralda smiled. "Now that I like the sound of…"

_Elena…_

Elena walked along a street towards her assigned destination. Suddenly, something moved through the shadows.

"Hello, Elena."

Elena gasped upon hearing that voice and whirled around to see Valentina.

"I know you're just trying to protect the jewel, but it'd be nice if you'd just hand my sister over."

"I'm not letting you do this."

"Too bad. I've already got what I came for."

Elena looked at her neck. The amulet she'd been wearing, the pink chain with the green sapphire charm, was gone. "What—Where did—"

Valentina turned into Esmeralda. "I can't believe you fell for that."

Suddenly, Elena felt a slithering on her body and looked at her waist to see a snake on her. The snake slid off and over to Esmeralda, turning into Valentina and holding up the necklace.

Esmeralda smiled. "In the bag."

Elena started to walk away but found her feet stuck to the ground. She couldn't move.

Esmeralda walked closer to her. "Oh, and, just to be safe…" She whipped out a dagger and stabbed Elena in the abdomen.

Elena collapsed on the street.

Valentina smirked. "Would take your blood, but I need immortal blood now. You're just not enough." She giggled. "But your little friends are. For now, they're fine. But they're in no condition to fight us. And once we have them all in our hands, it's a one way ticket to complete control. And there's nothing you can do about it." She cackled and grabbed onto Esmeralda with the arm that wasn't holding the amulet. "Zap us off, Emmy."

"Don't call me that," Esmeralda snapped.

"Very sorry."

Esmeralda waved her hand and the two of them disappeared.

Once they were gone, Elena, putting pressure on her wound, quickly raced off to find the others.

_Back at the tower…_

The rest of the group was collected in the lobby.

Kelly was standing in the center of the room in her normal clothes, everyone at least 5 feet away. "Why did you want me to hand over all my electric devices?"

"So I can do this," Wendy answered, picking up a large bucket of ice water and dumping it on her.

Kelly stood there, so drenched that her clothes were clinging to her fur and her ears were pinned down. "No. That did not help _at all_!"

Wendy shrugged. "Worth a shot."

Austin sighed. "Let's just hope the others are doing a better job."

Oddly enough, that's when the rest of the team walked in. Nadine was having trouble keeping her balance, Lucy was sliced open in her abdominal and chest areas, Robert had a broken arm and a battered leg, Jack was holding his head to keep it from developing into trauma, and Ryan and Michael were bloodied and bruised.

"OH BOY!" Sophie raced over there and helped her sons to the couch while Lexi grabbed Nadine and Lucy, Daniella got a safe hold on Robert, and Wendy helped up Jack. Once she was sure they were all safely situated, Sophie sighed. "What happened to you guys?"

"Valentina and Esmeralda jumped us," Lucy answered, placing her hands on her injuries, "If I didn't know any better, I'd say Esmeralda was more than just a regular Witch."

"No," said Sarah, "She's a pretty decent fighter for one thing."

"And she was teleporting and manipulating," said Robert, "Valentina even called her a 'control freak.'"

Daniella got it. "Oh, man! She's a Manipulator!"

"A what?" asked Duck.

"A dark sorceress capable of gaining control over absolutely anything should she gain enough power. We can_not_ let that happen!"

"Well, we can't fight her," said Lexi, "Look at our heroes here! None of them are in any condition to fight!"

"NO!" Everyone turned to see Elena in the doorway, leaning against it in pain as she kept her hands on her stab wound. "That's what they want! To get them weak enough…"

Austin caught the scent. He raced over there and helped her over to the couch, taking her hands away from her wound to reveal that they were covered in blood.

"Oh boy…" Nadine said, weakly.

"She'll live," said Austin, "They missed any major organs, she's just bleeding it out. Her body's keeping the blood away from its healing process."

"My life isn't all they tried to snatch," Elena said, "They took my necklace!"

"Well, boohoo for you," said Jack, "And here I am halfway to concussion and all you lost was a STUPID NECKLACE! Just be thankful they don't already have their hands on that 'lost princess.'"

"You don't understand!" Elena said, halfway to tears, "I _am _the lost princess!" That got everyone's full attention. "That necklace was the royal jewel! I am Valentina's baby sister. And that amulet is the power I took from her."

_At the warehouse…_

Valentina raced through the doorway, giddy with laughter. "WOOHOO! WE GOT IT!" She held up Elena's amulet.

Esmeralda rushed in, just as excited. "And the Loonakids are no longer a threat! _None _of them are in any position to fight a regular Vampire, let alone us!"

Valentina smiled. "Looks like this whole universe just got handed to us on a silver platter." She held up the royal jewel. "Mind giving me a hand? If you become the ballast that hooks me to the jewel's power, then I can't lose it unless something happens to you, which can't possibly happen after you get the 100th soul."

Esmeralda smiled. "No problem." She placed her hand on the jewel, closing her eyes and breathing deeply.

The jewel glowed and its energy flowed into Valentina.

Valentina felt the energy flow into her. "Yes! No longer will my youth fade! I need only catch those stupid crime-fighters and this world is mine!" Suddenly, the aura of a snake overcame her, making her eyes glimmer blood red. "And my power is complete." She let go of the amulet, dropping her hold on it and letting the energy send one last blast at her, launching her back into a pile of boxes.

Esmeralda held up the necklace it was now a blue crescent moon necklace. She quickly threw it across the room and raced over to Valentina. "Are you OK?"

Valentina got up, her hair falling over her face. When she was completely up, she flipped her hair away. Her eyes had turned from green to red. Her hair was an even darker black. Her teeth were sharper, like a snake's fangs. And as she held up her hands, she revealed that her fingernails had been replaced with blood red claws. She smiled and looked at Esmeralda. "Never better."


	11. Chapter 11

Sorry this took so long. Got a little bit blocked for a while, had to have dental surgery, and then was in the hospital...meeting my new niece! XD Well, here it is. And there should be a steady flow of updates from here on out until at least the end of the year (I've been writing ahead). So wish me luck!

Chapter 11

The gang was collected in the lobby of the tower, trying to tend to each other. Not going so well.

"That's it," said Wendy, "It's over." She looked at her watch. "10:22! I'm calling it!"

Lexi groaned. "Wendy, there's gotta be a way around this—"

"How? Tech's incorporeal, we can't fight, Elena's bleeding out, Nadine's way too weak, Benny's got a broken wrist, Robert's got a broken arm to go with it, Lucy's beaten and bloody, Rye and Mike are broken and battered, Sarah's lost her internal senses, Jack's a step away from a concussion and a nod away from a coma, and Kelly's 25 degrees away from overheating!"

"Hey, you've still got me and Archer!" spoke up Austin.

"Yeah!" Archer trotted up, "We'll give those two the what-for! HIYA!" He demonstrated his point by kicking the couch. "Oh, my paw! Oh, my paw!" He hopped away from it, favoring his sore paw, only to hit his head on the table. "Oh, my head! Oh, my floppy ears! Oh, my nose! Oh, my tail! Oh, my spleen!"

Austin groaned. "Well, you still have me."

Michael started to get up. "No, I…I can still fight." He stood up and instantly began to lose his footing. "Oh, look at the pretty stars." He fainted into his mother's arms.

Sophie sighed. "Yup, he's out of it." She looked at Ryan. "You don't get up."

Ryan nodded. "Gladly." He then proceeded to snatch his brother's ice pack and hold it to his sore head.

Elena lay on a couch while Ace tried to patch her up. "We can't let…Valentina…and Esmeralda…get to the power…in the royal jewel…" She groaned in pain, clutching her bloody stomach. "We'll never be able to win this battle then."

"Well, we can't win it now," said Jack while Wendy held an ice pack to his traumatized head.

"I hate to say it, but…" Sarah hesitated, "Jack's right." She clutched her throat.

Sophie looked at her. "What's wrong?"

"I never thought I'd say those words. It hurts so much!"

Sophie gave her a look.

Kelly looked at Ryan. "Rye, you're not using that ice pack, are you?"

"Actually, I—" Before Ryan could finish his sentence, Kelly snatched it. "OK."

Kelly started to put it to her head…only to have it burst into flames and disintegrate by her touch. "Oh, COME ON!"

Austin groaned. "Look, I'm sorry, but being dead, I'm always room temperature, so I can tell that it's freezing in here—" He went to adjust the thermostat, only to find… "Why does it say 82?"

"What?" Daniella went over there, leaving Rev with Robert, to find that he was right. "It's way colder in here than that! The A/C must not be running!" She waved her wand to make a thermometer in midair and it showed the real temperature. "It's 46 degrees in here!"

"What?" Wendy cried. She then realized what was going on. "Oh, Kelly, the Scorch Hex is spreading. Now you're sucking all the heat from the air and transferring it straight to you!"

Kelly groaned. "Great. That was the last thing we needed." She placed her head to her hand and instantly jumped back, whimpering and crying out. "I'm even burning myself!"

"Then I would suggest you not touch yourself," Austin said, "As a half-Vampire, you can_not _afford to get set on fire."

Kelly groaned. "How are we gonna get rid of these guys? We can't just give up but we can't beat them like this!"

"We could call in for backup?" Lucy suggested weakly.

"Oh, that is—so stupidly simple yet brilliant that I can't believe we didn't think about that," Daniella said. She looked at Lexi. "Well, get on the horn!"

Lexi ran for the conference room. She pulled up a list of allies. "Oh, come on, we've gotta have someone on here in range of us." She skipped over allies on the other planets with that note in mind and started searching over the Acmetropolis area. "Uh…Macy and Brenda! We can easily bring them in. And Chris and some of our old friends from Anasala…oh, yeah. This will work." She quickly started typing up the message to the selected allies. "'We have a situation'…'we need help'…'get here ASAP.'" She hit "send" as fast as she could and then raced back into the lobby. "They should be here any minute."

Suddenly, the electricity flickered and the building shook, tossing everyone against one another if not on the floor or furniture.

"Please tell me that was Karen wanting to enter with a bang," Kelly said.

"I don't think so…" Elena answered.

Daniella thought fast and cast something as fast and silently as she could.

That's when the doors exploded.

There stood Esmeralda and darkened Valentina.

No one was there.

"They sure fled fast for their conditions," Esmeralda commented.

Valentina scoffed. "You're telling me you can't see that?"

"See what?"

"The shroud. The Focus."

Invisible Elena gasped. _They already tapped the energy. She can see magic. We are going to die._

"Give me two seconds." Valentina sent out a blast of energy.

Suddenly, everyone in the room was thrown from the spell and against the wall if not simply over the furniture and onto the floor in a heap.

Valentina smirked. "You really thought you guys could hide from us? You think you can sneak up behind me and stab me in the back?"

"That wasn't the plan, but OK."

Suddenly, Valentina lurched forward and fell to the floor. A dagger protruding from her back. She instantly started trying to yank it out.

Esmeralda turned to face the attacker and instantly regretted it. Her arm was now flaming hot. She jumped back to find herself looking at Kelly. Vamp Kelly. "A Vampire fighting for the side of good? Now I've seen everything. How'd I miss that?"

Kelly gave her a look. "Because I'm the half-Vampire fighting for the side of good. _That's _the Vampire fighting for the side of good."

Esmeralda turned around to see what she was talking about and came face-to-face with Vamp Austin, who instantly punched her in the face to knock her down before she could even blink at this.

Valentina finally yanked out the dagger. Suddenly, she felt a burning sensation in her hand and threw the dagger aside, lodging it in the wall. She looked at her hand to find a burning spell spreading through it.

Austin noticed this. "Uh…Kelly?"

Kelly turned around to find Valentina rushing to wave her hand off. Kelly looked at her own flaming hands to find that they were cooling off. She smiled. _Guess there's more than one way to shift this spell. _She instantly rushed Valentina and jumped over her, grabbing the dagger from the wall and starting to fight her off with it.

Tech watched this all go down. Then an idea struck him: _Maybe I can touch Valentina. After all, I'm a Ghost by Meridian rules and she's from Meridian. I mean, when I was on Meridian, Sophie was able to slap me. Yeah, that's a memory I don't wanna re-conjure._

Valentina then pinned down Kelly, the Scorch Hex having no affect on her. On the contrary, she seemed to be weakening her more.

_Worth a shot. _Tech jumped her and grabbed her, letting Kelly stab her and let out a little bit more of the spell.

Suddenly, Valentina let loose a burst of energy, knocking Kelly across the room and into Daniella and then pinning Tech to the wall by the throat. "You're gonna wish you never—"

"HEY, VIPER!"

Valentina whirled around to find herself face to face with another female coyote.

"Get your hands off my brother." She sent a stream of dark energy launching at Valentina, throwing her across the room and against Esmeralda.

Tech looked at his sister. "Hey, Nell. Good to see you again."

Nellie smirked. "I could say the same for you. But come on, did you really think I'd miss a good fight?" She then noticed Kelly lying on the floor by Daniella, practically searing the floor where her hands rested. "RITA! GET IN HERE!"

Two more Coyote siblings raced in, one boy and one girl…clumsily running into each other.

Nellie groaned. "Rita, if you would handle the firebird over there…"

The female Coyote named Rita turned to find Kelly getting closer to overheating, melting the floor where she touched it. Rita nodded and raced over to her, sending a wave of ice through her.

Valentina and Esmeralda started to get up only for them to be thrown in separate directions by a sudden gust of wind.

Rita smirked at her brother. "Nice shot, Patrick."

Patrick just nodded.

Valentina suddenly turned snake mode and raced at them, only to be thrown to the ground and pinned there in human form by a shockwave of pain.

Macy Mastermind stood at the door, holding her down. "You guys should really work on your security, huh?"

Wendy smirked. "It's a flaw, deal with it. Oh, and clear the way."

Macy pinned herself to the wall. "What? Why?"

That's when a blonde human girl jumped in and attacked Esmeralda before her feet even touched the floor. Esmeralda recovered fast, but couldn't fight strong enough before she got pinned to the wall with her hands held behind her back.

Jack smiled. "Hey, Brenda. How you been?"

The Slayer smiled back at him. "Same old, same old. Wish I could say the same for you."

"Trust me," Lucy said, "For us? This _is _the 'same old, same old.'"

Brenda Sanders stifled a giggle.

Esmeralda just growled and sent a wave of magic energy at her.

She was thrown across the room into the wall, practically busting a hole in it.

Esmeralda turned to glare at her, her eyes flashing green again. Then she got a much better look at Austin, who now knelt at Kelly's side as Rita tried to mend the Scorch Hex at least half away. And she saw a soul light on him. _No wonder I didn't notice he was a Vampire… _She started a spell at him…only to bombarded by a large wave of water.

Christiana Pierce stood at the door, smirking brightly. "I love that power." She looked at Sarah and the others…to discover the predicament that was the cause of their inability to fight back. "What happened to you guys? Did you get hit by a train?"

"Two trains actually," Sarah commented sourly, nodding towards the "trains" named Valentina and Esmeralda.

Esmeralda looked at Valentina. _Can you hear me?_

Valentina looked at her. _The Focus is strong with you. I can hear and project entirely._

_Well, in case you haven't noticed, we're getting stomped and I'm still short like ten souls._

_Just follow my lead._

Esmeralda nodded.

Valentina started up a spell behind her back…

Daniella looked at Rita. "You're not gonna be able to fix it."

"I have to try," Rita said.

"No, you don't understand. You're just shifting the spell slightly, we need to break it. The only way to do that is to kill Esmeralda."

Rita looked at her, still pressing her power into her niece. "Then we've got a problem."

"Got that right."

Suddenly, they were all thrown back with such force that they landed in the park down the street.

Valentina smirked at them as walked up. "Weak. All of you. You'll never be able to—" Before she could finish her taunts, she was thrown aside and pinned to the ground by a burst of energy.

Kelly looked, even as she felt the Scorch Hex's power pouring back into her full force, and saw a familiar crest shaped like a Dragon with a lightning bolt over it. She smiled. "Took you long enough."

Jupiter stood there and smiled at her. "It's my first time here. Takes a little while to work me up, you know."

That's when Esmeralda stormed up. But they couldn't see her. She hid perfectly behind a building, right where they couldn't spot her.

"Where are the others?" Lexi asked Jupiter.

"They're right behind me, they must've hit a lag in the transport or something," Jupiter answered. But she answered cautiously. Obviously, she was hiding something…

Esmeralda looked over at Valentina, the only one who close enough to the street to see her. _Give me five minutes._

Valentina just nodded discreetly in reply.

Esmeralda walked off to an old apartment building. She looked at the door. "Time to test that power." She held out her hand at it and manipulated it to fly off the hinges and across the street. She smirked and stormed in.

Within the next five minutes, several cries of agony came from the building and a splatter of blood streaked across the windows…

Back with the gang, the healthy backup tried to tend to the injured heroes.

Tabitha (who had just arrived with Juniper, Kestrel, Karen, Carmen, Amanda, Saffron, Penelope, Eric, and Joy) was trying to get them prepped for the fight. "We need a Healer, or else we can't get them anywhere close to better."

"The best we've got is me," said Saffron, "And I'm only a quarter Healer. And my grandmother wasn't exactly Florence Nightingale."

"Well, there's gotta be something we can do," Kestrel said, "Otherwise, we're dead."

Suddenly, something blew behind them. Esmeralda stood there, a step away from full power. "Oh no…" She let Valentina loose with a burst a magic manipulation, letting her glare at them in full darkened form. "…you're dead and buried."


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

By now, the gang was backing up away from Valentina and Esmeralda.

"OK, can't we just talk this out?" Patrick asked desperately.

"Please," Esmeralda groaned, "Val here needs bloods to stay alive. Now I don't need your souls anymore, but you are in my way…and I could use some immortality to seal this deal."

Brenda thought fast. She saw a lamppost nearby and quickly kicked it hard enough to knock it over in front of the two bad girls, keeping them back. "SPLIT UP!" She led Jack and Elena off, the others running off in different directions also in threes.

Esmeralda finally grabbed the lamppost with her powers, lifting it and squashing it into dust. She then sent the dust flying and it followed Brenda's trail. She looked at Valentina. "You want that one?"

Valentina smirked. "Gladly." She turned into snake form and slithered off at top speed. She came back to human form in front of the Slayer, Jack, and Elena. "Were you trying to run? That's not fair."

Brenda instantly hit her hard enough to send her reeling into the wall.

Valentina turned to glare at her. "Well, little Slayer…aren't you gonna slay me?" She then moved to attack.

Brenda hit her back, then jumped up to kick her down.

Valentina responded by going back into snake form long enough to latch onto her and then turning back into human form and twisting her, knocking her into the wall sideways.

Brenda collapsed on the concrete, clutching her leg.

"Left leg: broken. Slayer: I'll get back to you." She then turned to her sister. "Right now, we have some family issues to resolve." She started at her—

Austin jumped in and landed on top of her in Vamp form. He knocked her down. "Sounds like you need a counselor. Allow me to sit in on this." He then kicked her hard enough to knock her into the next street.

It was then Esmeralda materialized behind him. She held up a hand and produced a stake which she started to—Suddenly, she was thrown into the air and onto the roof of the next building, dropping the stake in a pile of garbage and making it dematerialize.

Kelly stood there. "Mind taking up the fight with me?" She grabbed her and started spreading the heat of her own Scorch Hex to her.

Austin rushed up the drain pipe to them, followed closely behind by a snake Valentina. He started to help out Kelly but quickly had to start fighting off Valentina instead.

Esmeralda then captured the fire of the Scorch Hex and threw it back into Kelly, knocking her into Valentina. She then grabbed Austin and started to fight with him.

It was in this that Valentina snatched weakened Kelly and held her over the edge of the roof…which was at least 25 feet up.

"Let her go!" Austin commanded Valentina even as he tumbled with Esmeralda.

Valentina scoffed. "Very poor choice of words." She let go of her hold on Kelly and dropped her off the building.

Luckily, she landed on an awning. Unluckily, this resulted in the breaking of the awning and she fell onto the sidewalk. "I'M OK!"

Prudence Pasture (old friend of the triplets), appearing out of nowhere, grabbed her and pulled her into the building while Austin restarted with fighting away. Prudence looked at Kelly once they were safely inside the building. "What's up with you?"

"Scorch Hex, secondhand, can't drop it till we kill one of those girls!"

"Are you kidding?! Oh…!" She held up a formula. "Drink this, it's supposed to block out any elemental pain hex."

Kelly instantly snatched it and drunk it down. She instantly began to cool off. "Oh, thank you! Not so bad either, maybe a little spicy—" She suddenly started to choke.

Prudence looked at her. "Are you OK?"

The coyote looked at the potions' master Witch. "What was in that potion?"

"Uh, Troll mill sugar, Light Fairy dust, mushrooms from the Goblin forest—"

"'MUSHROOMS'?! I'M ALLERGIC TO MUSHROOMS!"

Prudence instantly saw the problem. "…uh oh."

Elena then rushed in with Jack, who was supporting broken-legged Brenda. "Uh, we have another problem."

As if punctuating that statement, the fighting Valentina, Esmeralda, and Austin then fell from the roof into the street (being stronger than Kelly, they hardly needed any time to recover from the landing) and started to go back into it.

The rest of the gang then rushed up to regroup and started in as well, hoping to knock either of the bad girls off their feet. Not going so well.

Kelly then rushed up and jumped up high enough to kick both Valentina and Esmeralda in the faces, knocking them down. She got herself together…and fainted.

Sophie blinked. "What happened?"

Prudence whispered the problem to her.

Sophie groaned. "At least this one we can handle easily." She grabbed her half-Vampire daughter before Valentina or Esmeralda could get up. Letting everyone else started the fight back up and distract from her, she pulled out a syringe and administered an injection.

After twenty seconds, Kelly groaned, getting up. "Remind me to strangle Prudence when the fight is over."

"First things first…finish the fight."

Kelly smirked. "Gladly." She then Vamped and set to work.

Unfortunately for them, Esmeralda then threw out her power at full blast, knocking all of them back into the walls. "Really? You believe you can stop us now? I control all!" She held up her hands, holding a blast of electric energy inside.

Valentina then stood beside her. "My power alone is unbeatable, how do you expect to withstand us both?!"

Sarah then got the ingenious idea that would save them all: "A house divided against itself cannot stand." She smirked. "Alright then. We give up." Everyone looked at her in shock. "So who gets to go first?"

"Me," both bad girls said in unison. Then slowly turned to glare at each other.

"Excuse me?" Esmeralda growled.

"Hey," Valentina sneered, "You've gotten all you need, I've yet to reach my peak."

"I'm the one with the power, you'll do as _I _say!"

"I'm sorry, did you say your name was Esmeralda or Narcissus?!"

At that, Esmeralda threw her into a lamppost, knocking it over.

Valentina responded by pulsing her power through the road, throwing Esmeralda in a brick wall.

Esmeralda responded by pulsing _her _power into the bricks, sending them flying at Valentina.

Valentina dodged them all perfectly and then sped over to grab her—"WAIT! What's wrong with this picture?" She and Esmeralda then simultaneously turned to glare at the Loonakids and friends.

Everyone then glared at Sarah.

Sarah shrugged. "Well, it was worth a shot."

Esmeralda then threw a blast of energy at them, making them rush out of the way and separate again. She then turned to glare at Valentina. "We're still not done with this."

Valentina nodded. "Duly noted." She then rushed off after her sister.

The gang regrouped in the cemetery.

"OK, I think we lost them," Juniper sighed.

Austin then glared at them. "Right. Now who's bright idea was it to make the cemetery our _nightly_ rendezvous?!"

The new problem then presented itself: five Vampires rising at once and quickly putting up a fight.

"YOU'VE GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!" Brenda growled at full volume.

"Anyone else noticing a pattern in the last twenty years?!" Nellie demanded.

"Great, now what?" Karen groaned.

"Run for our lives?" Carmen suggested.

"Brilliant plan." She then started running with her sister, the others following.

Until Valentina and Esmeralda jumped in, closing up the circle, and took out all five fledgling Vamps in one strike.

"OK, now I'm just plain freaked out," Joy panicked.

"Did you really think you could stop us?" Valentina growled, her eyes flashing.

Chris smirked. "I'm sorry, but did anyone else hear the plan involving stopping them?"

Kelly then jumped Esmeralda while Tech jumped Valentina.

Macy quickly seized the moment to send her power of pain coursing through both the bad girls, giving the two coyotes their competitive edge.

Kelly sent Esmeralda reeling through a fence and tussled with her down a hill. She started in with the fight.

Meanwhile, Tech started to wrestle with Valentina.

Valentina finally flipped him off.

He quickly regained his footing and turned to glare at her.

"Nice try, Ghosty. But I think I have the upper hand here."

He looked at her as she drew closer…and smirked. "We'll see about that." He then grabbed her and plunged his arm through her chest, grabbing her heart even as it still beat and squeezing it until it crumbled.

While this continued, the rest of the gang and their backup saw the lights of Kelly and Esmeralda's magic fight that would quickly tilt against their favor.

"NOW!" Jupiter cried. She and everyone else put their hands in and created a burst of power. Brenda then used her Slayer strength to send it flying in the direction of Kelly and Esmeralda.

Even as this happened, Valentina dropped dead, crumbling into her snake form and then fading to dust, leaving just a certain jewel.

Elena quickly took her necklace back…and saw a certain coyote lying there unmoving. "…guys…" She knelt down beside him and touched him. She could touch him. Also being from Meridian, that made sense…but didn't explain the fact that he was cold and lifeless.

Sophie looked in shock.

Elena looked back at her…and shook her head.

Rita, of course, went into shock. "…what happened…?"

"Pressure from the last bite. Couldn't take it in that form."

Ryan looked…and then stormed over there and threw her aside. "Move!" He gathered his strength as he stood over his father and then threw out his power in the form of an electric burst taking power from the street (as if the cemetery needed any). He then threw it into Tech's body, electrifying his heart to restart his powers. He knelt down, still holding his powers there, when it didn't work immediately. "Listen, Dad." He then did the defibrillation again. "You are stupid…" Again. "…know-it-all…" Again. "…doesn't think before he acts…" Again. "…gets himself blown up on a daily basis…" He then started pushing in the shocks in sequence. "…but we need you, now don't! Die! Again!" Still nothing. And all the energy he'd conjured was spent. It hadn't worked.

Or had it?

Suddenly, a faint green glow appeared that they recognized instantly, fading all too quickly once it'd done it's job. "I had a dream, Rye." There was Tech, waking up to smirk at his eldest son. "You were insulting me. Repeatedly."

Ryan smirked back. "Now would I ever do that?"

Sophie then pounced on her husband, holding him close, followed (naturally) by the others, even Austin.

Tech then realized who was missing once this was over. "Where's Kelly?"

"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!" Kelly flew over the broken fence and landed on Tech. She got up. "I am _not_…OK…" She fell back down.

_Later…_

The four elder Coyote siblings were now hugging all together.

Nellie squealed in delight. "It's so good to have you back, bro."

Tech smirked. "Thanks, sis."

"What, no 'good to be back'?" Patrick smirked as he started leading his sisters off.

Rita scoffed. "Let's just get home."

"What, can't wait to see your boyfriend?" Nellie asked.

"He's not my—" She cut herself off. "…shut up." She then left.

Tech just blinked. "'Boyfriend'? How much did I miss?!"

Chris smirked. "Well, I'd love to reminisce and make with the happy and all, but…I got ten minutes to get back into the water, so later." She rushed off, hugging Tech again on the way out and Sarah as she left.

Macy just shook her head. "Honestly, Mermaids…" She then smirked at Tech. "You sure you're OK, buddy?"

"Fine for someone who almost just died for a third time."

"Right, keep the count an even two for me, would you? I've gotta go, I have an appointment at AT." She rushed off.

"These people don't know how to have a reunion, do they?" Carmen smirked. She started to—

"NO MAGIC IN THE TOWER!" Daniella cried, making her jump and send the start of her spell flying into the chandelier, which quickly shorted out. She sighed and used her own power to fix it. "We haven't exactly magic-proofed the whole place yet and it took quite a hit tonight."

Prudence and Jupiter and Saffron were now working away healing the Loonakids and Elena.

Prudence smirked at her fellow Witches. "You guys can't go five minutes without a spell, can you?"

"Look who's talking, Miss _Temper_mental Alchemist," Penelope snickered.

Prudence just scoffed.

Kelly looked at Penelope in shock. "A reference to _mortal _pop culture…from the 21st century?"

Penelope shrugged. "I get around."

Tech snickered. "I am never gonna get used to you guys."

Joy smirked. "I guess in a way it's good to see you again, big guy."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Tech smirked, still accepting semi-hugs from their Witch companions.

"Well, we've gotta get back to Anasala and let everyone know things are OK over here," Karen said, leading her fellow Witches into a circle, "Shall we?"

"We shall," Eric smirked back.

All the Witches put their powers together to open the portal off.

Prudence smirked at them. "Well…see you." She headed off (Far, Far Away was, well, far, far away, after all).

Penelope forced out as much of a smile as she could muster. "See you…wouldn't wanna be you." She jumped off.

Saffron smirked at them. "Catch you on the flip side." Zap.

Amanda gave a quick "salute" and started off. "Have fun over here fighting evil." Zap.

Eric hesitated… "What she said." Zap.

Joy started to bounce in giddiness. "It was so good to see you guys again. When are you coming back to Anasala? Or calling for us again? Then again, this time wasn't all that fun—oh, well, it all worked out in the end, though, right? I mean, Esmeralda's not coming back and we all saw Valentina go down and Tech's back—either way—" Eric then came back and grabbed her. "OK-BYE!" She then went flying back through the portal.

Karen shook her head. "Unbelievable." She smirked. "Next time you need us…don't need us." She headed off.

Carmen sighed. "She's just got an attitude. She had fun. We'll see you later." She rushed off after her sister.

Juniper looked at the triplets and then at Tech. "You guys sure to do know how to have an adventure, don't you?"

"They kind of follow us," Wendy smirked.

Juniper snickered. "Noted." She sighed. "Well…we'll miss you…don't call me on Friday again, that's my sleep-till-Saturday day." She then went off.

Kestrel scoffed. "Honestly, that girl—can we evict her if she's blood?" Tabitha shook her head. "Nuts." She then followed her.

Tabitha sighed. "Well, good luck over here…Loonakids." She then walked off, closing the portal as she left.

Brenda started getting her stuff together to go.

Austin looked at her. "You leaving?"

"Got Vampires to slay."

"Got a home to go back to? You don't exactly have a family," Sophie said.

"Don't remind me."

"Oh, no, it's OK…we're your family now."

Brenda looked at her…and smiled. "Yeah…I guess you are." She sighed. "I'll let you know if I ever wanna move in." She then left. But just as she opened the doors to start off, she looked back. "By the way…you were right. I can't do it alone. It's nice to have some other heroes around." It was then the Slayer left the building.

Elena then got up, holding up the retrieved royal jewel.

"Well?" Kelly asked, "What are you gonna do now?"

"My kingdom's gone. My 'true love' has…been taken care of. Not exactly much for me to do, huh?"

Daniella thought this over…and then rushed off. She came back with a glowing rock. "We got this during the Forgotten Forests massacre. Supposed to give a wish. I'll make it for you." She tossed the stone over to Elena.

Elena caught it perfectly and it broke into sparks, which floated to her feet and took the form of a small black cat.

Archer saw this—

"Don't even think about it," Elena sneered, reaching over to take the cat into her arms. She looked at Daniella. "Explanation?"

Daniella smirked. "It's a Familiar. Supposed to guide and protect—I'll you'll figure it out soon enough."

Elena smiled. "Guess that'll give me some headway of the next Valentina, huh?" She sighed as she started off. "I'll be around the South District. Call there when you need me again." She then left.

"She sure knows how to make an exit for a princess who specializes in entrances," Lucy smirked.

"Well, at least it's finally over and we're all one big, happy family again," said Nadine.

"No hugging," said Jack.

Nadine sighed.

3…2…1… "Oh, who am I kidding?! Get over here!"

They all hugged. They were a family again. And this time, nothing could break them apart.

…nothing…

**THE END…?**

YAY! I finished it! Well, like I said a chapter ago, there should be a steady flow of chapters for a while now, so the next story should be up at least by next week...or tomorrow. Anyway, thanks for reading, keep reading, reviews are appreciated (well, good ones, anyway-smirk, smirk). Thank you and good night!


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